


only to find it gone

by diana_hawthorne (dhawthorne)



Series: Private Lives [7]
Category: Law & Order
Genre: Break Up, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-06-27 00:29:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 50
Words: 96,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19779586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dhawthorne/pseuds/diana_hawthorne
Summary: Secrets are revealed.Set during the Season 5 episode "Pride"--my explanation for Mike's infamous Punch. (June 1995)





	1. Mike

He wakes up first for once, lying on his back, her arm thrown across his chest. She’s sleeping soundly, exhausted from their late nights and influx of work. Even today their day is crowded with meetings and suspect interviews, their schedules overlapping more than usual. Work has been utter shit lately, but at least their vacation is fast approaching.

He dreamed about it last night, Liz in a skimpy bikini, suntanning on the beach. In the dream she turned to smile at him, reaching out a hand to run down his arm.

‘I’m so happy,’ she said, and he kissed the back of her hand, the ring he’d bought her sparkling. He was happy too, and when he woke up he comforted himself with the thought that at least it would be reality in just over a week.

It’s taken him a long time to get to this point--years. They’ve been together almost four years now. He should’ve asked her to marry him sooner, ages ago, but he was afraid he was tempting fate after his big mistake. But now he feels confident in proposing. Now he feels like he’s finally made it up to her enough. He’s not gonna wait any longer. He’s not gonna waste any more time. They get back from Bermuda in the middle of July--they’re skipping her family’s Fourth of July for the first time ever--and he wants to marry her as soon as they can organize it, by the fall at the latest.

He’s crazy about her. He wants to be with her forever and he’s finally ready to make it official, make it legal. He’s ready to have a family with her. He has no more doubts, no more fears. Nothing’s gonna ruin it now.

She snuggles closer to him in her sleep, tightening her half-embrace unconsciously. She’s smiling to herself and he’s sure she’s enjoying just the sort of dream he was earlier. Gently, so not to wake her, he rolls her onto her back. She murmurs slightly and he grins, leaning over to kiss her as he runs a hand down her side. Still moving slow, he tugs up the hem of her nightgown and feels her sharp intake of breath as he rests his hand on her abdomen.

‘Mike,’ she whispers, waking up, propping herself up on her elbows to look down at him. He grins up at her.

‘Good morning, honey.’ Before she can respond, he kisses her belly lightly, moving lower. He loves the sound of her gasp, the way she brings her hands up to rest in his hair.

‘We have work,’ she protests weakly, and he ignores her, spreading her legs.

‘C’mon, babe, it won’t do any harm to be a little late,’ he says persuasively. ‘Besides, the alarm hasn’t gone off yet.’

It does just as he speaks and she wiggles out of his embrace to turn it off. ‘We have to get up.’

‘I can be quick,’ he promises, grasping her hand and pulling her back to him. ‘I was dreamin’ about you… c’mon, Lizzie, I know you were dreamin’ about me too.’

She laughs but allows him to settle between her legs. ‘And how do you know that?’ She reaches down between them, grasping him. He sucks in a breath and she smiles. 

‘The way you were breathin’... and you were smilin’,’ he says, his own breathing coming quicker as she squeezes lightly. He reciprocates, lowering his hand as she arches her back and gasps. ‘Christ, you’re turned on,’ he adds in wonder, still, after four years, astonished at how much she wants him.

‘Oh,’ she sighs happily as he shifts his weight. She releases him, resting her hands on his chest as she looks up at him, the look on her face suddenly soft and so filled with love his heart skips a beat. ‘God, Mike…’ she trails off.

He’s never felt like this about anyone else. She loves him, doesn’t she? She wants to be with him? It’s still so hard for him to believe even after four years together. It’s still tough for him to say he loves her and impossible for him to express how much she means to him. He kisses her, trying to show her how much she means to him without words, and she pulls him closer, still smiling.

They have to shower quickly because by the time they’re finished they’re out of time. She turns on the coffee machine while he turns on the shower and as soon as they finish washing up they dress and pour coffee into to-go cups and head down to his car. They hit a lot of traffic, and he can tell that she’s anxious about being late, but he enjoys the time they have together. He keeps glancing over at her and smiling. He can’t wait for their vacation.

By the time they get to the precinct Van Buren is in her office with whatever ADA was sent down and the suspect is waiting in the interrogation room.

‘Nice of you to show up,’ his partner says.

‘Sorry, there was a ton of traffic,’ he says, spreading his hands in a “what can you do?” gesture. He can’t supress the grin on his face and Lennie notices.

‘Uh-huh,’ Lennie replies skeptically, his eyes darting between the two of them. He doesn’t have to look at Liz to know she’s blushing. ‘Liz, you want to go first? He’s already been Mirandized.’

‘Sure,’ she says, sneaking a quick glance at him. ‘Thank you.’ She heads into the room, the suspect and his attorney looking up at her.

‘I’m Dr. Elizabeth Olivet,’ she says. ‘I’m a psychologist. I’d like to ask you a few questions…’

Liz is halfway through the interview when Van Buren shows up with the ADA in tow. His heart stops when he realizes that it’s Sherri West. She greets Lennie, then looks at him, surprise showing in her face. After a moment, she smiles, offers him her hand to shake, and holds it for just a moment longer than she should. He drops her hand quickly.

Van Buren says, ‘I have to check in on Profaci, so I’ll leave you with Logan and Briscoe, Ms. West.’

‘Fine,’ Sherri says, and shoots him a long, smoldering look. He looks away, back at Liz, who is completely unaware as to what’s happening. Lennie, when he sees his gaze reflected in the glass, is much less oblivious. He swallows and looks down at the floor. Time ticks by. His heart is racing. Sherri is talking to Lennie and his thinks, this can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.

He jumps when Liz knocks on the glass, signalling the end of the interview. Sherri walks to the door before he can and opens it. Liz steps out, leaving the suspect and his attorney to confer. Lennie flips off the speaker and Liz gives them a brief summary of her conclusions.

Sherri says, ‘Donnelly authorized a plea--seven and a half to fifteen.’

‘Great,’ Lennie says. He can’t speak and he can feel Liz’s gaze on him, wondering what’s wrong. ‘We don’t have enough hard evidence for a conviction so let’s hope he takes the plea. Mikey, go in with her.’

He wants to protest but he knows that Liz will know that something is wrong, knows that Lennie will know it too. He nods jerkily and heads into the room, leaning back against the wall inside the interrogation room as Sherri follows him in and takes a seat.

He’s not listening to what she says, or what the perp and his lawyer say in response. He keeps glancing back at the window even though he knows he can’t see Lizzie. _Shit. Shit. How can this be happening?_

There’s a sudden surge of movement as everyone at the table stands up. The perp and his attorney head out and before he can do the same Sherri stops him.

‘I suppose I’ll forgive you for being late if you take me out to dinner,’ she tells him, smiling seductively. His heart is racing, he wants to stop her from talking, but he doesn’t know what to say. He prays that Lizzie isn’t there any more, that she isn’t listening. Sherri steps closer to him. ‘After all, you never called me back that time you were my witness--what, two, two and a half years ago?--and we… celebrated…’ she trails off and tucks her card in the pocket of his suit. ‘Give me a call after we work all of this out. I look forward to seeing if you still live up to your reputation.’ She pats his chest proprietarily then breezes out of the interview room.

His heart is pounding and when the door closes he moves, banging his way through the door, praying that she’s not there.

But she is.

Her face is bloodless and her hands are shaking so badly he’s sure she’s gonna drop all her papers.

 _Oh, fuck_ , he thinks. _Oh, fuck._


	2. Liz

While the ADA is offering a plea and Mike is inside with her, she and Lennie chat desultorily about summer plans. She’s so excited to be in Bermuda next week… she wonders if Lennie knows that Mike is coming with her. She thinks he does, that he must, but neither of them mention it.

Then the interview is over, and the suspect and his attorney are leaving. She gathers her papers together, hoping to talk to Mike quickly before she goes to speak with Anita, but the ADA, Ms. West, she reminds herself, stops him.

‘I suppose I’ll forgive you for being late if you take me out to dinner,’ she says, smiling coyly at him. ‘After all, you never called me that time you were my witness two years ago and we… celebrated…’ she trails off deliberately, reaching out to stick her card in his breast pocket. Her heart pounds. Her palms are suddenly damp with sweat and she feels like she’ll vomit right here. _What is going on?_ She can’t see him; his back is to her. Does he think she’s left? Is he flirting with her? Does he… welcome this? ‘Give me a call after we work all of this out. I look forward to seeing if you still live up to your reputation.’ She pats his chest before opening the door out of the interview room, head held high, giving them a cursory nod as she walks towards the exit.

Mike bangs his way through the door a moment later, his face ashen. She looks down quickly, knowing she’s giving herself away--her hands are shaking so much she’s afraid she’ll drop her papers, and she feels sick and dizzy, and she’s afraid she’ll faint or vomit or burst into tears. He betrayed her.

Forcing herself to meet Lennie’s curious gaze, she says, voice trembling, ‘Um, can you tell Anita that I’ll write up my report this week? I have an appointment I have to make. And in any case I don’t think the suspect is insane, or can legitimately use the mental disease or defect defence.’

‘Yeah, of course.’ She sees Lennie dart a glance over at Mike but she refuses to look at him. Does Lennie know about them, too? Has Mike told him, or has he figured it out for himself? Not even Anita knows, no one at work except Phil and Don Cragen and neither of them are at the 2-7 any longer… 

‘Thanks.’ Ignoring him, she walks out of the squad room as quickly as she can without further showing her distress. She half-expects him to follow her and, as she waits on the corner for a cab, her heart pounds in expectation. She needs him to come out--even though she can’t bear to listen to him right now she needs him to deny it--

A cab pulls up in front of her and she climbs inside, giving the driver her address. As soon as the cab starts to drive she leans back, closing her eyes.

Is it true? Well, Ms. West had no reason to lie, no reason to provoke. She didn’t know anyone was listening. She certainly didn’t know they were together. Two and a half years ago… after she was raped? Before? When during that horrible year did he sleep with her? Or was it earlier… when they were happy? Or at least when she thought they were… Was she the only one? Has he been cheating on her all this time? They’ve been together for four years… how much of it has been a lie?

They get stuck in traffic and she suppresses a sigh of frustration, desperate to get home and lock herself in her apartment and cry. By the time they finally pull up in front of her building she’s barely keeping it together and she shoves a wad of cash at the driver, the ability to separate the bills beyond her at the moment. She breezes past her doormen, nodding at them, and presses the “up” button on the elevator repeatedly before it arrives. The elevator ride, and her subsequent unlocking of her apartment, pass in a blur. But as soon as she steps into her apartment and unlocks it time slows again and she can no longer suppress the tears kept so long at bay.

He finds her crying on the sofa when he comes back. Her face is buried in a pillow and her sobs are so loud she doesn’t hear him unlock the door, though she hears it slam behind him, giving her a few precious seconds to compose herself. She hears his heavy footsteps as he walks down the hallway as she hurriedly wipes away tears. She must look a mess.

‘Please tell me it’s not true,’ she says, clearing her throat. Her voice is strained from crying and he flinches at the sound.

‘Lizzie,’ he says, voice tight, and she looks at him. His face is grey and drawn and she knows, without a doubt, that it is. Oh, God.

‘When?’

‘It was after Phil--and after, after you were--’ he breaks off. ‘It was one time. It hadn’t happened before or since--with anyone. It was a mistake.’

‘A mistake,’ she repeats, voice hollow. How can he dismiss this so casually?

He rubs his hand over his eyes; he looks exhausted, as completely shattered as she feels. She shifts her seat and draws her knees up to her chest, shielding herself.

‘It wasn’t anything. It didn’t mean anything.’

‘Then why did you do it? Why, Mike? I thought… I thought that what we had meant something to you. I thought… I thought that you loved me,’ she whispers, her voice catching on a sob. She drops her gaze, ashamed and hurt and angry, so angry that he put her in this position, devastated that he betrayed her.

‘I do,’ he says, though his voice doesn’t have the ringing certainty she needs. ‘God, Liz, you know that.’

‘But I don’t!’ she says, trying not to cry. ‘Not now! You slept with someone else, Mike, while we were together! After we’d been together for more than a year! When I needed you! How can I believe anything anymore?’

He stands in front of her, completely silent, unable to speak. She doesn’t know what to say either. Her heart is breaking.

‘Why, Mike? Why did you sleep with someone else? What did you think when it happened?’

He finally speaks. ‘I didn’t mean to. It didn’t mean anything, Liz.’

‘Really? Having sex with someone else didn’t mean anything? What was it about her that made her so goddamn irresistible to you?’

His control finally snaps and he begins speaking with an urgency she’s never seen before. ‘It didn’t mean anything! I just couldn’t take it, what it was doin’ to you--tearin’ you up, breakin’ your heart… it hurt to look at you, Lizzie. It hurt to watch you and know that I didn’t do enough to help you, to know that I couldn’t help you then. It was too much…’

‘So you sought out someone else?’ she snaps, anger coming to the forefront. ‘It’s so nice to know you care, Mike.’

‘Of course I care! How can you doubt that? What happened was a mistake. I needed to talk and we were drinkin’ and one thing led to another… I never meant to hurt you. I never meant for this to happen.’

‘You can’t think this explanation is enough.’

He sighs, all his anger vanishing in an instant, leaving him empty and sad and suddenly old. She can’t bear to look at him. ‘I dunno what else to do,’ he admits.

She always told herself that if a man cheated on her she’d dump him. She never thought Mike would, not after the beginning at least. She truly believed that he loved her, that he wanted to be with her. They’ve gotten back on track, and she thought he’d propose soon, in Bermuda maybe, thought that they’d be happy, get married, have a family. But now… how can they go on, how can she stay with him, knowing this? How can they build a future together if she’s constantly unsure of him? She will be from now on. How can she trust him again? He lied for two years, nearly three. He hasn’t even apologized. What other choice does she have?

But she can't lose him. She just--she just can’t talk to him any more, not right now. She needs time. 

‘I want you to go,’ she whispers.

He ignores her, or maybe he doesn’t quite hear what she says. ‘We need to talk about this, work it out.’

‘There’s nothing to discuss right now. I can’t. I want you to go home.’ It takes everything she has to say these words.

‘You can’t mean that,’ he scoffs.

She finally manages to look up at him, fighting back tears. ‘I mean it. I need some space right now.’

‘You breakin’ up with me, Elizabeth?’ he asks her. She doesn’t answer; she doesn’t know how to respond. He looks at her and she watches a strange metamorphosis. He changes from the bereft, pleading man she’s never seen before to someone distant and almost familiar--cold and withdrawn, as he was when he was her patient, his jaw set and shoulders tense. His voice is tight and heavy with anger as he says, ‘Fine. I’ll get my things.’

She waits, frozen with shock that he’s not protesting. She watches the minute hand tick by, ten minutes passing before he finally comes back from their--her--bedroom with an armful of clothes. She can’t quite believe this is happening. Just this morning they were making love, so excited for their upcoming vacation… she was smiling up at him, so overwhelmed with love she couldn’t imagine anything ruining how she felt.

And now… well, now, it feels dirty and tarnished. She feels unutterably stupid, and broken, and angry with him and with herself. How did she trust him so implicitly? She knew who he was before they started their relationship. She knew that he wasn’t one for commitment… how can she be surprised? She was deluding herself if she believed he could change. But she truly believed that he loved her… and maybe he did, but it wasn’t enough. He didn’t love her enough.

On one level she knows that there are different sides to the story, that she was always the one he turned to for help, and knows, too, that he could not when she was in such distress. She pushes that thought down ruthlessly. She can’t contemplate anything else right now or she’ll never get through today, tonight, the rest of her life. The only thing she can think is that he hasn’t apologized. Is it because he’s not sorry after all?

How are they going to get through tomorrow at work--and not only tomorrow, but every day after that? And not just work. How are they going to get through the conversation they need to have? And… how can she make it clear to him that while she is angry, while she is upset, she loves him? How can they find a way to move forward?

She thought that he was going to propose in Bermuda. She prayed he would… she wants to get married to him. She wants to have children with him. He knows that. And because he knows that… how can he just be leaving like this, not even apologizing, not protesting? And whose move is it next?

He’s angry now, coldly furious. She can’t say anything. He dumps the clothes on one of the slipper chairs, goes to the kitchen, and emerges with a few brown paper grocery bags. He shoves his clothes into them, then heads back to the bedroom. If he’s leaving now, like this… he’s taking all of his things, she realizes with a growing sense of despair. Everything here… he makes several more trips, bringing books and framed pictures and the rest of his clothes--suits and ties and sweaters--oh, God. Oh, God. She doesn’t know what to do. She can’t move. He doesn’t love her after all. He doesn’t want her. She’s been deluding herself all along.

She should have known that. After all, he wouldn't commit to her in any concrete way. She suggested, several times, that he move in. Each time he’d put her off with excuses she found hard to accept--that they could talk about it when his lease was up, that he thought they should wait a while… 

They’ve been together for four years and each year that passed she was certain he would propose to her. In Ireland, she’d thought, then on her birthday, at Christmas, any special trip they took… how foolish she’s been. What a fool she is. He never wanted to marry her. He couldn’t even commit to living with her. 

By the time he finishes throwing his clothes into the bags his anger has left him, as though he’s tossed that emotion inside, too, like the rest of his life. He had so many things here… well he had spent almost every night here for three years, even if he didn’t want to move in officially. As he turns back to her she sees that he is resigned to what’s happening, even if she isn’t, even if this isn’t what she wants, and he says, ‘Chuck the rest. Key’s on the dresser.’

He picks up his bags and walks away, slamming the door behind him.

She sits there, frozen, for a long, long time, listening to the reverberations from the slamming door quiet, then fade.

‘You are such a fool, Elizabeth,’ she says at last to her empty apartment. ‘You are such a fool.’


	3. The Punch

He drops the last of the brown paper grocery bags on the floor, listening to the thump with a sick satisfaction. He looks around his apartment. He hasn’t spent the night here in months and the rooms are stuffy, airless, and hot. He hadn’t bothered to get the super to install the window AC, but now he’ll need to, since he’ll be living here again. He rubs a hand over his eyes. Christ.

He hasn’t had anything to eat all day--they skipped breakfast and he couldn’t eat lunch and dinner… he doesn’t have any food here, obviously, and he should eat something, but he doesn’t know that he could keep anything down.

He steps into the kitchen and opens the fridge, staring into its empty depths. At least it’s cool, so he keeps the door open and hunts for any booze he might have. He finds a half-empty bottle of Bushmills at last, in the back of one of the cabinets, and doesn’t bother to find a glass, just brings it back to the couch.

Why did he just walk out? She just wanted some space. Why did he leave and why did he take all his stuff? Why didn’t he apologize, why didn’t he get down on his knees and beg for her forgiveness, why didn’t he tell her that he was in love with her and needed her and couldn’t live without her, why didn’t he just ask her to marry him? Why did he just walk away?

He stares at the phone and takes another swig of whiskey. He should call her. He should call her and tell her how sorry he is, how heartbroken he is, how he never wanted to hurt her. He should write her a letter. He should pull her aside tomorrow at the precinct and tell her--

He takes another swig of whiskey, and another, and another. Thank Christ this apartment barely has any memories of her. They really didn’t spend time here; she spent maybe a dozen nights here over the four years they were together. But he has a couple of her things here. He doesn’t want to touch them now.

He looks at the bulletin board on the wall next to the TV. It’s populated with pictures of them. He leaves the bottle on the coffee table and stands up to look. There they are in Ireland. There they are in Bermuda. There they are in the Hamptons and Connecticut and here in the city. There they are on the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving and Christmas. She’s smiling in all of them, either at the camera or up at him, and he thinks _Christ, she is so beautiful._

How the hell did he just walk out?

He wakes up early, his head pounding, his mouth dry, hungover as fuck. He stumbles into the shower, glad that he at least didn’t oversleep. He’s almost out of toothpaste and mouthwash, adding it to his list of things he’ll need to buy. The bitter reality of his life now comes crashing down again and his headache worsens.

He has two hours before he has to head up to the precinct so he heads to Midnight Express, thankfully open twenty-four hours. He forces down a large breakfast and takes two aspirin before ordering more coffee. Something’s gotta give, he thinks. And he’s gotta be contrite when he sees Lizzie this morning. He’s gotta convince her to give him another shot.

He drives to work. It feels so strange to be heading to the precinct from his place and not from hers. The whole morning is fucked up, he thinks, forcing himself to focus on driving, to not get in an accident. When he parks the car, he checks to make sure he still has the ring in his pocket. He slipped it in before he left for the diner and he thinks that if anything’s gonna make her listen, it’ll be this.

He bought the ring last week, dragging Pat up to this antique jeweler that had a good selection of engagement rings. He spent over an hour looking for ones in his price range, and even though he’d saved up he was dissatisfied. Finally he spent more than he really could afford and bought it, a ring with a sapphire with a diamond on each side. Sapphire’s her birthstone and he thought she’d really love it.

He had the proposal all planned out. They’d get to Bermuda and check in and unpack and then they’d go for a walk on the beach. And when they got far enough away from everyone else he’d get down on one knee and pop the question. And she’d laugh and say yes and he’d put the ring on her finger and they’d kiss, and she’d cry, and they’d go back and order a bottle of champagne and make love.

And now… well, that’s not gonna happen. It’ll be awkward and rushed and they won’t have any privacy, because there isn’t any in the precinct. He’ll have to pull her aside and ask her to marry him here, maybe around the corner from the break room, because he needs her to know how badly he feels, and how sorry he is… 

He pushes his way through the doors. She’s supposed to come in at 11; it’s only 8 now, so he has hours to wait. He heads to get a cup of coffee; his head is still pounding. He shouldn’t have had so much to drink last night, especially on an empty stomach. He feels like shit, and not just because he walked out on her.

Four years together, he thinks, pouring coffee into his mug. Four years of knowing her, and loving her, and being loved by her… and he let it all slip away. Well, he still has a chance to get it back, to get her back, to love her forever and marry her and have a family with her… 

He sighs. She wanted to marry him so long ago and he knew that at this point she was tired of waiting, though she never let it slip. But there were times when there was such naked longing in her eyes--when she was with Tommy and Eileen, or with her nephews--for children, or the few weddings they attended together… he knew that she was ready long before he could propose.

The fact that she loved him enough to want to marry him, let alone want a family with him… it turned his heart over every time he thought of it. Especially because she knew how fucked up his parents were… that she trusted him enough… He sticks his hand in his pocket to touch the ring box again. She’s gotta say yes, right? This is what she wants.

He makes his way back to his desk; Lennie is there, flipping through files, though he looks up when he sits down.

‘So what happened yesterday?’ he asks, setting down the file he was looking at. ‘Liz ran out of here like she saw a ghost.’

He wants to talk about it--Christ, he needs to talk about it, he needs advice--but he can’t. He shakes his head. ‘It was nothin’.’

‘I’m sure it wasn’t nothing. You look like shit. Something obviously happened,’ Lennie presses.

‘Nothing,’ he says again, more firmly. ‘It was nothin’.’

He looks down at his own files, feeling Lennie’s gaze on him. Finally he gives up and ostentatiously flips through his own paperwork, then starts pounding away on his typewriter.

He feels like he spends most of the morning looking at the clock, waiting for Liz to show up. At 10:30 L.T. comes over to them.

‘Kincaid just called. Jury’s coming back with the Crossley verdict. Better get down there.’

‘Great,’ Lennie says, standing up and slinging his jacket back on. ‘Took them long enough.’

The Crossley case… after all this that happened yesterday he’d forgotten about it, but now it comes back with a vengeance. Being forced to go on the stand, all the shit he had to admit to… they better convict the son-of-a-bitch. It wasn’t coercion, for fuck’s sake. And McCoy making him admit it in court… well, he’d do a lot more to get Crossley, but--it better be worth it.

‘We’re supposed to meet with Olivet,’ he says, forcing his voice to sound normal. ‘She’s supposed to interview that perp again.’

‘He took a plea last night,’ Van Buren says. ‘I called Liz this morning. And anyway, she told me she wasn’t gonna make it in, she has the flu.’

He feels Lennie’s gaze on him. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Let’s go.’

Lennie drives. He can’t. His heart is plummeting to his shoes--he’s not gonna have a chance to talk to her. She called in sick. She never did that, ever. She must be devastated.

Well, he knows that. He did that to her. Is she gonna pick up the phone if he calls? Will he be allowed up to their--her--apartment if he goes to talk to her?

He doesn’t know. He has no idea. He should at least try. He can’t just throw everything away.

‘I’m gonna park in the garage,’ Lennie says, cutting over to a side street. ‘If this doesn’t go the way we want, I’d like the car to stay in one piece.’

‘Yeah,’ he says tightly. ‘Good idea.’

The courthouse is crowded and the courtroom is packed. He catches Kincaid’s eye and she beckons them forward; she and McCoy saved them a seat. He takes a seat first, then Lennie. 

‘You ready for a riot?’ Lennie asks, leaning forward.

‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ McCoy says.

And, of course, it’s a hung jury. Christ, he thinks angrily. Why? Can’t these people just suspend their prejudices for long enough to convict a fucking _murderer_. He’s so lost in his own thoughts that he only snaps out of it when Claire speaks.

Claire says, ‘ _If_ we wish to proceed?’

‘We try him again, they’ll gay-bash again.’ McCoy shrugs.

‘Is there a sucker on every jury?’ Lennie asks.

‘It’s hard to say. They don't wear a sign,’ McCoy says.

He’s furious but he tries to play it off. ‘So my mea culpa was for nothing.’

‘I’m sorry,’ McCoy says and at least he sounds genuine.

‘Well, at least you didn't arrest me for coercion.’

‘It’s just a Class-A misdemeanor,’ McCoy says, clapping him on the back.

‘Oh, well that makes it okay, then,’ he says, shaking his head. They make their way out of the crush of people in the courtroom. Lennie and Claire are talking about something and he follows behind them and McCoy, who doesn’t try to talk, thank God.

When they reach the steps of the courthouse he and Lennie stop short. It is a riot--people breaking through the cop barriers, screaming, chanting… and then someone jumps over the barrier and punches a uniform in the face and he heads into the fray.

 _God, it’s a relief_ , he thinks, hauling off the protestors and letting loose a punch. To let go of all his frustration and anger and just--shove people, hit them… it feels so good. It is such a relief.

He’s still doing his job, keeping the protestors away, getting the slimeball lawyer in the car. And then he’s face to face with Crossley.

‘We’re on the same side, if you don’t know it,’ the bastard says, and he looks at him, and there is nothing in his mind except _I am nothing like you_ and _Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck_ and the anger just overwhelms him. And then he hits him, his fist connecting with his face with a satisfying crunch. He feels someone pulling him away and he goes, watching the blood drip from Crossley’s nose and the shock on his face and he spits on the ground in front of him.

‘Bastard,’ he says, and he lets himself be pulled away.


	4. Sick Day

She can’t seem to move for a long time, until well after the sun has set and night has fallen. The hours tick by in a blur. She finally stirs, her bones aching, her heart aching, her mind aching from trying to understand what happened. She makes her way slowly to their--her--bedroom and stops short in the door.

The room is a mess. His dresser drawers are pulled out, the closet he used has the doors swung open, revealing empty hangers. His nightstand is bare too. The bed, which she hadn't made this morning, is crumpled, white sheets twisted and tangled.

She takes a deep breath and starts putting her room back together. It takes a long, long time. He’s taken so many things, everything, really, except a half-empty bottle of cologne she bought him and three worn tshirts that were left at the back of one of his drawers. Nothing else is left. She finally, finally crawls into bed, burying her face in his pillow, inhaling his scent which has already started to fade.

She wakes up to a ringing phone and gropes for it, finding only his empty nightstand. Everything comes crashing back and she sits up straight, leaning across the bed to reach for her phone.

‘Hello?’ she says, and winces at the sound of her voice.

‘Liz? It’s Anita. Listen, the perp took a plea this morning so we don’t need you to come in.’

That’s a relief, she thinks. At least she doesn’t have to get out of bed and try to be a person. She can grieve. She doesn’t have to move yet.

‘Okay, great,’ she says. ‘I have the flu, so I wouldn’t be able to make it in anyway.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Feel better, Liz.’

‘Thank you,’ she says, and hangs up.

She feels awful. Her heart feels tender and bruised and she just wants to curl back up in bed and go to sleep and wake up with him next to her. She sinks back into bed and closes her eyes. She can picture it.

‘Lizzie,’ she can hear him say. ‘Sorry, work ran late. Want me to grab breakfast?’

She buries her face in his pillow again. She doesn’t want to move. She just wants to stay here because here in bed with his scent surrounding her she can pretend that nothing has happened.

She lets herself fall back to sleep.

When she wakes up, it is late afternoon according to the shadows stretching across her bedroom. For some reason she still feels exhausted, but now she is hungry too. She hasn’t eaten for more than twenty-four hours. _No_ , she corrects herself. They had dinner together two nights ago and that was the last time she ate. She feels suddenly dizzy with hunger and goes to rummage through her fridge. She finds a wedge of Brie, some crackers, and makes herself a salad to go with it, taking the time to make a nice one, even making a vinaigrette instead of bottled salad dressing. She brings her food into the living room and pours herself a glass of Sancerre from the open bottle in the bar fridge, then turns on the television.

It’s almost time for the six o’clock news, she notes with surprise. She’s slept all day. She looks around the living room as a commercial plays. She sees a box of envelopes and a roll of stamps sitting out and she remembers writing him a letter last night, when she was unable to leave the living room.

I can’t believe you left, it said, she remembers, spying the envelope. She remembers crying as she wrote it. As though she’s in a daze, she stands up and collects the envelope, then leaves her apartment to put it down the mail chute. She hurries back to her apartment, to her fortress, and locks the door behind her. She goes back to the living room and sits down as the news starts.

‘A mistrial was declared in the murder trial of Kevin Crossley,’ the chipper newscaster begins. ‘Mr. Crossley was accused of murdering Richard Durban. Riots broke out at the courthouse and Homicide Detective Mike Logan--’ she almost spills her wine as his face appears on the screen, first a still photo, then a video clip of him punching Crossley ‘--assaulted Councilman Crossley. Detective Logan is a thirteen year veteran of the NYPD and currently is assigned to the 27th Precinct.’ They play the clip again. ‘We will keep you updated on these developments.’

The news cuts to commercial and she closes her eyes. ‘Oh, Mike,’ she whispers, resting her head in her hands. ‘Oh, Mike.’

The phone rings and she lets it go to the answering machine. ‘Liz, it’s Mummy,’ her mother says. ‘I just saw the news. Is Mike all right? What happened? Please call me back.’

There are a few more calls--Katy and Miranda and Nicky. She doesn’t pick up the phone. She sits on the sofa and listens to the messages and waits for him to call.

He doesn’t.

The phone ringing jolts her out of sleep. She is sleeping on his side of the bed again; again, it takes a moment to reorient herself. She picks up the phone. ‘Hello?’

‘Liz, hi--it’s Lennie.’

‘Lennie,’ she says, suddenly awake. Her heart is racing. ‘What’s going on? What happened?’

He sounds exhausted. ‘I dunno. He just--did you see the news?’

‘Yes, I saw it,’ she says. ‘Where is he now? What will happen to him?’

‘He was held for a few hours. We convinced Crossley not to press charges,’ he says. ‘But Liz--there was an emergency disciplinary committee last night. He’s been suspended for a month and then--then he’s getting transferred to Staten Island.’

‘Oh, God, Lennie--’ she says, knowing as well as he does what that means. It’s a dead end for his career, an exile, something he will never be able to get past even if--when--he gets back to Manhattan. This will devastate him. Especially after--

‘Listen, I don’t know what happened the other day, but--Liz, after the hearing was over--I’ve never seen him like that before. And whatever happened between you guys--I don’t want to know, but I think he needs you.’

She’s brought her knees up to her chest as he’s talked and covered her eyes with her free hand. _Oh, Mike_ , she thinks. _Oh, Mike._

‘Liz?’ Lennie says again.

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Thank you. Keep me updated.’

‘Sure,’ he says.

She hangs up the phone and looks at the clock next to it. It’s six thirty in the morning. She has to get up. She has patients today. She just wants to stay in bed.

It’s too early to call him right now. She’ll call him at lunch. And say what? She doesn’t know. She’ll figure it out.


	5. Picture It

He wakes up hungover again and it all comes crashing down. Lizzie, his job, the punch--his hand aching from it--and Lizzie again, Lizzie Lizzie Lizzie. Always Lizzie. When he closes his eyes he sees her, crying and laughing and smiling and happy and sad and--a constant montage of images, of bits of their life together.

Even if she’d listen to him now, he can’t go talk to her. He barely felt like he was good enough for her before all this happened and now… what can he offer her? He’ll never be home and she’s not gonna give up her apartment to move downtown closer to the ferry. She grew up there. It’s her home.

So, picture it, Mike, he thinks. You wake up almost two hours earlier every day to get to Staten Island. It takes you an hour and a half to get there and an hour and a half to get home. After working a ten hour day, you’ve really been on the go thirteen hours. Then you get home and crash and do it all over again. And--that’s no life for her. And she wants kids. You’d never see your kids. Maybe one day a week and a couple weeks in the summer. And you wouldn’t recognize them, because you’d barely recognize them anyway, the sort of life she’d give them. So you’d divorce and you’d never see your kids and she’d marry someone else and it would all be a huge mess.

It’s not gonna work, he thinks with despair. It’s not gonna work.

He’ll let her go and he’ll try to let her go with some grace. A woman like Lizzie… she’ll find someone else in a second, someone who deserves her, someone who would never cheat on her. And whoever she finds… he’ll love her, give her the children she desperately wants, and be there for her.

He can’t.

He’s out of booze and besides, he doesn’t want to fall into the bottle, so he spends the morning cleaning his apartment. It needs it--dust has piled up and it’s a mess. He’s scrubbing the bathtub when the phone rings again--and it’s her.

 _Mike_ , she says, and he stops what he’s doing to listen. _It’s me. Liz. I--I heard what happened. I am so sorry. If there’s anything I can do_ \--she pauses then, for so long he thinks she’s hung up. _I love you, you know. I’m in love with you. I don’t want to be broken up._ She pauses again and his heart pounds. _I’m sure the last thing you want to do is sit on a beach, and you’ll probably think this is stupid, but--why don’t we go on our trip as planned? It’s a healing place. We can work through this. I want us to share our lives. I don’t want that to be over._ She sighs and ends, _you don’t need to call me back if you don’t want to. You can--maybe you can meet me at the airport. I hope you do._ And after another long silence she finally hangs up.

He leans back against the bathtub. She still wants him. She still loves him. It’s a shock so profound it nearly stops his heart. He hasn’t lost her. She’s offering him another chance. What is he gonna do? 

He goes back to scrubbing the bathtub with force.

He plays her message again and again to the exclusion of the other twenty on his answering machine. _Mike, it’s me… I love you… I’m in love with you._ He can’t stop listening it. It’s the best thing he’s ever heard, her voice saying that she loves him. And God, how he loves her. He spends a good portion of the afternoon sitting on the sofa, looking at the engagement ring he bought her, turning it so it sparkles. He wants to give it to her. He wants to go over to her apartment and propose, or even just show up at the airport, see her expression turn from astonished to joyful, wants to have her run into his arms and cry from happiness. He wants to take her hand and slip the ring on her finger and never let her go.

But how can he do that when he won’t be there for her? He’ll be on Staten Island, and even if he leaves the Force… he could never imagine that, doesn’t know what he’d do otherwise.

But how can he not rush over there? He’s in love with her and hell, he’s a selfish bastard, he wants her all to himself forever and ever and ever. He wants her to belong to him legally. He’d do just about anything to make that happen.

He’s finished cleaning his apartment. He doesn’t think it’s been this neat since the day he moved in, but at least he feels better for doing something productive. He goes grocery shopping too and he thinks, _maybe I’ll head over there tonight._

But when he gets home his father is waiting for him on the stoop.

By the time he gets his dad settled on the couch with a whiskey his heart is sinking. He doesn’t want to talk to his father but he’s not surprised that Dermot is here. He leans against the wall and looks at him.

‘You guys broke up?’ he asks, the first thing he said besides, ‘I need a drink.’

‘Yeah,’ he says shortly. He knows why his father asked--even though he’d cleaned his apartment he hadn’t been able to unpack anything besides the necessities from the bags he’d brought over from her place.

‘When?’

‘Couple days ago,’ he says, an attempt to satisfy his father’s curiosity.

‘Yeah, well, I can see why,’ Dermot says, downing the rest of his whiskey. ‘Girl like that… and you never bothered to pop the question either. I thought for sure you would, but what do I know?’

Listening to his father talk… fuck him, anyway, he thinks. He’s the reason he didn’t ask her sooner. The way he was with his mother…

Dermot continues, ‘She was way too good for you. I knew it from the moment I met her. But still, Mikey, I thought you’d be smart enough not to let her get away.’

‘Listen, Dad,’ he grinds out. ‘What happened is between me and Liz, okay? So thanks for comin’, but I’m fine.’

‘You sure?’ Dermot asks. For a moment he thinks that his dad is serious, that he cares, and he almost spills out everything. Then he notices he’s eyeing the empty whiskey bottle, his eyes scanning the room to see if there’s anything else.

‘I’m sure,’ he says, and his father stands up. They say goodbye and when his father finally, finally goes he collapses on the sofa and closes his eyes.


	6. Examination

For the rest of the day, every time she thinks about his phone call she feels a flush of embarrassment hit her. _Really, Elizabeth! He’s hardly going to want to relax on a beach after all this happened. Let alone with you._

She feels ridiculous. Not just because of the message she left, but at her belief that anything that she’d say would make a difference to him. If it did, he wouldn’t have left so easily. If he cared about her…

But no, she thinks to herself. She has to believe that he did care about her, that he did love her. They had spent years together, after all. He couldn’t have faked that every single day. He wouldn’t have… he wasn’t that good at lying.

Or maybe he was, because he hid something so enormous from her for years.

She feels like she has no idea what has happened during the past four years of her life. Everything needs to be looked at again, turned over, examined. _Was it really like this?_ she needs to ask. _Is that actually what happened?_ She thinks, _my life may be completely different than I thought it was because of what I’ve learned._

She thinks that the act itself may ultimately be less damaging than that, than reevaluating her entire life with this knowledge.

When she gets home from an endless day of seeing patients, she has more messages from her mother, from Miranda, and from Katy, but none from him. She doesn’t respond. She makes herself eat dinner and she reads the front-page article about him in the Ledger--COP POPS POL. She tries (and fails) not to cry. She goes to bed.

His scent has almost completely faded from his pillow. She brings one of his tshirts to bed with her, holding it tight.

She knows that this isn’t a good coping mechanism but she doesn’t care right now. She misses him so much it is a physical ache. She didn’t think it could ever feel like this, that she would ever feel like this. But she was wrong, of course.

It feels so strange to be so wrong. As though she’s been walking along a bridge and it’s suddenly crumbled beneath her, leaving her falling, falling, falling.

She closes her eyes.

She feels foolish again, waking up on Thursday morning. When she left him the message she asked him to meet her at the airport. They were meant to leave on Saturday morning. She can’t cancel the trip now, even though she knows he won’t come. If there’s even the slightest chance… she can’t give up hoping that he will.

So on Thursday morning she drops some clothes off at the dry cleaners to pick up on Friday. She’ll need to pack tomorrow. Even if he doesn’t come… this trip may be worth it. Maybe she’ll be able to get some peace. Because she doesn’t know how she’ll be able to move on from this unless something comes to shake her out of the rut she’s already in.

She doesn’t know how she gets through her appointments. Jessica, her assistant, knows that something is wrong. So do the two other doctors in her practice. She tells them all it’s nothing, that she has the flu and she’s exhausted, that it’s a good thing she’s leaving in two days. She has a sense that none of them believe her.

She has to call her parents that evening. She picks a time she knows they’ll be out at their club for dinner and leaves a message, saying she’s been busy with work and that she’ll talk to them when she gets back from Bermuda. She deliberately doesn’t mention Mike. She doesn’t know what to say.

She takes her time making an elaborate dinner, a pan-seared salmon salad. She goes out to Citarella to pick up the ingredients she needs, then prepares it carefully, as though for a dinner party. She pours herself a glass of Sancerre and eats alone in her dining room. After she cleans up, she takes a long bath, soaking in the tub.

She finally changes the sheets after her bath. His scent has dissipated and besides, they are past due to be changed. There is something very indulgent about sliding into crisp sheets, she thinks, doing so. Her housekeeper irons them and that is a true luxury, having crisp ironed sheets.

She picks up her journal and writes in it, recording the events of the day as dispassionately as possible. She tries to be her truest self when she writes in her journal, recording the events of the days, then her feelings about them. It’s a record for her later, but more important than that: it’s a way for her to work through her feelings now. It’s easier for her to feel… not better, necessarily, about things, but more settled.

 _I don’t know what to do,_ she writes tonight. _I want him to come back. It’s… I feel as though all the time since I found out about this and now has been occupied with dealing with the fact that he’s left, that we’ve broken up. It’s been hard to focus on the reason for our breakup. He had sex with someone else._

_For me, having sex has always been such an intimate thing. Even if I thought, when we slept together for the first time, that it would only be that… I wanted him so much. And the way I felt for him… I don’t just hop into bed with people. How many people have I slept with in my life? Four. And I know that’s not the case for him--he’s admitted that, that he had a lot of sex because sex wasn’t a big deal to him until he met me. So maybe sleeping with Sherri West didn’t mean anything to him. But it means something to me._

She sets her journal aside, turns off her lights, and burrows under the bedcovers. She stays awake for a long time, staring up at the ceiling, thinking.


	7. Avoidance

Time goes fast and slow and he can’t predict how long it takes to get through the day. It feels like years at some points and then ten minutes at others. Somehow he manages to get through Thursday.

He wakes up on Friday and he has a decision to make. She hasn’t called him again, but he’s listened to her message so many times that he can hear it on his own if he closes his eyes and thinks.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He could stay here and then they’d definitely be over.

He can meet her at the airport and try to put their life back together.

He can go to her apartment and at least say a proper goodbye.

He can go with her to Bermuda and they can spend that time together and then, at the end of it, they can go their separate ways. 

He doesn’t know what to do.

He knows what he wants to do. He wants to run to her and never let her go. But he’s broken her trust in him. He doesn’t know how to rebuild that.

He decides to pack for the trip. Just in case. He doesn’t deserve it, but he wants her. He wants to be with her. And if he can’t let himself do that… she deserves a proper goodbye at the very least. And he wants to be selfish enough to give them a little more time together even if he ends it after that… 

He closes his eyes.

He spends the day taking out his frustration with physical activity. There’s a pickup game at the Y and he plays probably the best game he’s ever played. By the time the game finishes he is sweaty and exhausted but he goes for a run around Carl Schurz, then finally, finally, heads back to his apartment.

He showers and calls the pizza place for dinner. He doesn’t have anything in the fridge; his grocery shopping the other day was limited and he doesn’t feel like going out now.

He tries not to look at the brown paper grocery bags still filled with his stuff from her place. He tries not to look at the canvas duffle bag that he packed. He can’t help looking anyway.

He hasn’t looked through his mail, he realizes, seizing on that as a distraction. There’s a big pile. He separates it--bills, junk, things he needs to reply to. One of the last things in the pile is from her. His heart nearly stops when he sees it.

Her handwriting, though shaky, is immediately recognizable, and he doesn’t need to flip the envelope over to see her engraved name and address to know that it’s from her. His hands are shaking slightly now, too, and he gingerly opens the envelope.

The paper within the thick creamy envelope isn’t the matching stationery. It’s a piece of paper torn from one of her notebooks. The paper is tearstained and he reads the single line.

_I can’t believe you left._

Nothing else.

He tucks the paper carefully back into the envelope and puts it in his dresser drawer, safe and sound. His apartment buzzer rings and he goes to get his pizza.

He wakes up very early on Saturday morning even though he tossed and turned all night, thinking about the letter she sent, thinking about her message, thinking about her, period. But he’s finally made up his mind. He gets out of bed, showers, and dresses. He takes his time. This is important.


	8. Hope

She gets to the airport three hours before her flight at 10:30. She doesn’t know why. Actually, she does. If he comes, she doesn’t want to miss him.

She knows that he won’t come. Why would he? It’s ridiculous to think that he would. He hasn’t called her back. He hasn’t written her. 

She checks in at the desk and then goes to get some coffee and a croissant, returning quickly. She finds a seat near the gate so that she can keep an eye on the arrivals. She tries and fails to read her book. She eats her croissant even though she’s not hungry and drinks her coffee although she hardly needs the caffeine after the two cups of coffee she had at home. After finishing her coffee, she goes to the bathroom quickly and washes her hands, then studies herself in the mirror.

She looks too thin, she thinks critically. And she looks tired. There are dark circles under her eyes; she hasn’t slept peacefully since it ended. She needs a break. Even though she knows she’ll be in Bermuda alone, she hopes it will help her heal.

When she emerges at last it’s time to board. She scans the waiting area once more, reflexively, but he’s not there. Her heart sinks. Apparently she had still cherished a slight hope… well, she was wrong. She has to start moving forward, moving on with her life. If he doesn’t want to come back to her, then what else she do?

She hands her ticket to the attendant at the desk and is shown onto the plane, then into her seat. The flight attendant puts her suitcase in the overhead compartment and brings her a glass of champagne. She settles herself in the window seat and then rummages in her tote bag for her book, the biography of Anne Sexton that Mike bought her for Christmas years ago. He’d written inside, I love you. Merry Christmas, Lizzie. She rests her fingertips on the inscription for a brief moment before flipping the book back open to her bookmark.

She reads, immersing herself in the story of the poet’s life, when a very familiar voice says, ‘Is this seat taken?’

Her heart stops and she looks up at him. He is hovering awkwardly, waiting for her response, and she is frozen with shock and joy. Finally she pats the seat next to her and she sees some of the tension leave his shoulders. He slings his bag up in the overhead compartment, takes his seat, and buckles his seatbelt. She can’t stop watching him. After a year, it seems, though it’s only been a few seconds, he turns to her and takes her hand and she squeezes it tight.

They don’t talk on the plane. She doesn’t know what to say. She pinches herself hard, sure that she’s dreaming, but she’s not. She can’t keep herself from looking over at him. She keeps her hand in his, even when he falls asleep.

When he falls asleep she feels as though she can think for the first time. He’s here. She can’t believe he’s here. And because he’s here… he wants to make things work. He wants to be with her. Her heart feels so glad she’s sure she’ll burst from joy.

They still have so much to work through--the infidelity, his leaving so abruptly… not to mention how they’ll move forward--but right now she just wants to bask in his return, his presence next to her, her hand in his. He’s here. He’s here. He’s here.

He wakes up when the plane lands and releases her hand to stretch. She feels an immediate sense of loss, although it’s tempered when he turns and grins at her.

‘Feels good to be here and we haven’t even gotten off the plane,’ he says, and she feels an answering smile stretch across her face.

‘Yes,’ she says, and he takes her hand again, bringing it to his mouth to kiss it. She smiles wider and squeezes his hand tight.

They get off the plane and go through customs; she holds his hand tight, afraid that if she lets it go he will vanish. They don’t talk yet, not about anything other than, “should we hail a cab?” “No, a car is picking us up.”

They both chat with the driver when they find their car. She holds his hand on her lap and clutches it tight. She feels ridiculous, holding his hand like this, but he holds her hand just as tight, resting his hand on top of their joined ones. She doesn’t want to let him go.

They get to the club and one of the staff comes to greet them, taking their bags from the trunk. They head into the club and she checks in, letting his hand go with extreme reluctance to sign in. They are shown to the same cottage they stayed in all those years ago, their only other trip here. As soon as their bags are set down and they are alone, he gets to his knees.

Her heart pounds. He takes her hands and looks up at her and suddenly she is sure she is going to faint. _Is he going to propose?_ she thinks, her mind racing. _Oh, my God…_

‘Listen, Liz--I know there isn’t anything I can say to make things better. It didn’t mean anything, honestly--’

 _No_ , she thinks, her heart sinking. _This isn’t a proposal._

‘--but I know that what I did… it means something to you. Liz, I am so sorry. I know that it’ll take you a long time to forgive me, if you ever do, and I understand that. I am so, so sorry for hurting you.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘Look, I know the last thing I should be doing is asking you for a favor but… I know we need to have a big conversation. I’ve done a lot of things that were wrong. But can we just put it on hold for a while? Just enjoy the time we have here and we can talk at the end of the trip maybe?’

She looks at him--the open, honest expression on his face, the hope in his eyes, the obvious desire to enjoy their time together. She knows that they need to talk, and they should talk now, not in a week, not when they get home. Now.

But God, she wants to just set this down for a while, and be with him, and be happy with him. And just… let this be for a little bit. She can do that, can’t she? She nods and he grins and if it’s a little dimmer than it used to be, she sets that aside and when he stands up she steps into his embrace.


	9. Dark and Stormy

The hardest thing he’s ever done in his life is get on that plane and sit down next to her. She was so surprised and then, suddenly, so happy--just to see him. It unsettles him, the power that he has to make her happy or make her sad. He shouldn’t be this important to her--he doesn’t deserve that. He shouldn’t be this responsible for her happiness.

He’s always viewed her as such an independent person, even when they shared a life together, that realizing how reliant she is on him for her happiness is disturbing.

He apologized--not enough, but a start--and she came into his arms willingly enough and they kissed and one thing led to another… he let himself get swept away. But now, she’s in the shower, and he’s supposed to be unpacking in their bedroom, and he feels uneasy, and edgy, and worried.

He’s gonna let her down again, he knows it.

He pretended to sleep on the plane because it was easier than talking, or avoiding conversation, or even looking at her. She held his hand the entire flight, as though she was afraid if she let go he’d vanish. He can’t believe this amazing woman feels so strongly about him, for him… that she loves him so much. Somehow he’s never felt like this before, like he’s standing on quicksand. He’s always felt like their relationship was solid bedrock but now… he realizes what an illusion that was.

How can he trust that she’s gonna be there for him if he could just walk away from her when the chips were down? How can he trust that she won’t do the same thing he did, just walk away when he needs her?

He hurt her so badly. He could’ve taken a knife and cut out her heart and she wouldn’t have been as injured as she was when he walked out. And how can he trust that he won’t do that again?

He’s gonna break her heart. He knows it. And how can he do that to her if they get married and have kids? The stakes would be way higher than they are right now and he would lose so much when that happens… and she would too. And their future kids, if they had them… how could he hurt them like that too?

He brought the ring with him and he was gonna propose to her just like he planned, but… now he can’t. He knows he can’t.

So what he’s gonna do is make sure that she has a good week, just the two of them, and then let her down gently at the end of it. He can give her that much, at least, he thinks. Make her happy for a little bit and then let her down easy, while she still has time to find someone else to make her happy and give her the kids she desperately, desperately wants, even if the thought of it makes him sick to his stomach. 

He hears the shower turn off and he takes a deep breath. He’s got a week. He’ll make it a good one for her.

They have lunch at the terrace restaurant and they have a great view of the water. She looks relaxed and content, the strain he saw in her earlier slowly vanishing. She keeps glancing up at him and smiling; every time he does he feels his heart clench with guilt.

 _Stop it_ , he tells himself after the twentieth time. _Just set it down for now, okay? There will be plenty of time to deal with the guilt later. A lifetime. So just make it good for her._

‘We barely did anything the last time we were here,’ she says when their cocktails arrive. ‘Let’s really go out and explore this time.’

‘Great,’ he says, picking up his Dark ‘n Stormy. He’s about to take a sip when she interrupts him.

‘Wait, we have to do a toast!’ she says, holding up her Planters’ Punch. ‘Here’s to us. I love you.’

He touches his glass against hers and summons a smile for her. ‘To us,’ he says, and almost chokes on the words. He raises his glass and takes a long, welcome sip.

She carries the conversation, suggesting different activities--sailing, walking the Railway Trail, climbing to the top of Gibbs Hill Lighthouse. He agrees to all of them, to her obvious delight, and he feels a little bit of the ever-present guilt ease at her obvious happiness.

‘Well, let’s just be lazy today, hmm?’ she suggests. ‘We can go down to the beach, and go swimming and read, and then maybe tomorrow we can go out on the water. I’ll ask the desk to arrange something for us for sailing tomorrow. Then maybe on Monday we can go walk the Railway Trail and climb the Lighthouse?’ 

‘Great,’ he says. ‘Let’s go to that beach restaurant for dinner one night.’

She smiles. ‘I’ll have the desk make us a reservation. Maybe for Monday?’ He nods and she smiles again. ‘I’m so glad we’re here.’

‘Me too,’ he says, and reaches across the table to hold her hand. ‘Me too.’

After lunch they head back to their cottage. It looks exactly the same as it did two and a half years ago when they went here after the trial. Being here with her now, with the guilt so fresh… it feels the same, too.

She seems to be doing okay, to his surprise, but then she’s been pretty good about compartmentalizing things when she has to. Maybe Bermuda’s like an escape for her, because right now she’s smiling at him, and telling him she’ll pack the beach bag, as though he never hurt her.

He wishes he could do as good a job.

He thought that taking this week would be good for her and, selfishly, for him. It would let him have some memories to hold onto when he broke things off. But he doesn’t know how he’s not gonna give it away before it’s time to end things.

He grabs his suit and changes in the bathroom while she puts their beach things together. When he emerges, having given himself a stern, silent talking-to, she’s dressed in the skimpy bikini he dreamed about the other night and is slipping a beach cover-up on.

‘Ready to go?’ she asks him. 

‘Yeah,’ he says, clearing his throat. ‘I’m ready.’


	10. Bliss

She is surprised by how good it feels to have him here, as though nothing has changed. Somehow, on this magical island, she is hard-pressed to remember the pain he caused so recently. It has always been this way. Being here has always allowed her to put bad memories aside and just be. And they need that now. 

He’s still--and obviously--nervous. Well, she can understand that. What he did… both years ago and recently… and her reaction to it… she can understand why he feels unsettled. But she wants him to relax, wants them to enjoy this time together as he suggested and make this trip a good one, wants them to reconnect… she needs that.

There is obviously a chasm between them right now, but they can bridge the gap. And being here… that will help. They don’t have anything to do but be together.

After lunch she gets changed into the bikini he likes the best, the very revealing one, and slips a cover-up on as he emerges from changing in the bathroom. His gaze is appreciative and she is grateful for it. Even after their… earlier interlude… she feels a bit nervous about their intimate life, about resuming it after everything, even though it’s been years since he slept with someone else. But their coming together earlier today was explosive, exciting, and she felt hopeful and invigorated at its conclusion. She feels hopeful again now as he crosses the room and takes her hand before they begin their walk down to the beach.

Unlike their trip in 1992, the weather is hot instead of warm, and the beach is crowded. When they arrive one of the staff members sets up beach chairs for them in the sun. It feels lovely to be here in the heat--not as oppressive as the city, and with the sound of the waves lapping against the shore, and the promise of a cocktail after a swim… 

He is not a strong swimmer even after all these years together going to the beach and spending time at the pool, but he liked swimming here when they were here last time, and he seems to be enjoying it now. The water is calm, and clear, and deep, and she loves floating here, feeling so relaxed, held and comforted by feeling so weightless.

She looks up at the sky. It is blue, a bright Bermuda blue. She feels at peace, the wounds from last week staunched and set aside for now.

She can imagine moving forward now. She loves him, she is in love with him, and even after his infidelity she still wants to marry him and be with him and love him forever. She wants to have children. She is tired of waiting.

They have things to work through, certainly. And it will take time to rebuild what has been broken between them. But she knows that will happen in time.

She will feel more at ease when they get married. When they promise to honor and be true to each other. And when they have children…

There are things they need to talk about. Staten Island for potentially five years… their lives will be very different. They won’t work together any longer. His commute will be long if they remain where they are. But they could move. She grew up in her apartment but her parents, she’s sure, would want it back, especially if there will be grandchildren, and they could buy a place together in the Village, which would be a much shorter commute. She likes the Village, and especially that small private court off Grove Street… that would be nice. They could build their own home together, just the two of them for now, until they had their children… 

She wants children so badly. The biological compulsion to procreate is obviously part of it, but… she wants to have his children. She wants to be a mother. She loves him so much and she feels as though she has so much love to give that she wants children to lavish with love and affection. She wants to be pregnant and have her children and take care of them and share the world with them and love them… 

‘Lizzie,’ she hears him say, and she straightens up from her recumbent position to look at him. He’s treading water and he smiles at her. ‘Want to head in for a cocktail?’

‘Yes,’ she agrees, and swims over to him. She pecks him on the lips quickly and then they head back in together.

Bliss, she thinks, sprawled happily in the lounge chair, the hot sun beating down on her skin, a cold cocktail in her hand, the man she loves at her side. She is so happy. He’s here.

And he’s here. He’s here because he loves her and wants to be with her despite everything that’s happened… he doesn’t want anyone else. He doesn’t want to be with Sherri West or anyone else. He wants to be with her, Liz Olivet. What an amazing thing this is. She’ll never stop being thankful that they found their way back to each other. Even though she knows her feelings of anger and betrayal are just beneath the surface, right now they are still buried. And she knows that what they have is so rare and special that no matter how she feels about his infidelity, she can’t let him go. She won’t let him go.

Things will be different for a long time, she knows. Learning to trust him again, and adjusting to his new job, and all the new things that will accompany that will occupy them for a long time. And then marriage, and children… 

It took her parents ten years to have their only child. She’s thirty-four now, will be thirty-five in a few months--she doesn’t have that time. She wants to get married this year. She wants to start trying for a baby right away, as soon as they get married. And she wants to get married soon.

She was never the sort of person to dream about her wedding, but she’s thought about it a lot in dreaming about their future wedding. He won’t want to get married in a church, she knows, so Heavenly Rest is out. She wondered about getting married in the city, maybe at the Colony Club, but he wouldn’t want that, nor the yacht club. She’s imagined getting married at her parents’ house. But maybe they should get married here, on the beach. That would be wonderful. Being here with their families and a few close friends… 

She pushes herself up lazily and looks over at him. He’s dozing, looking completely relaxed for the first time since they got here. She smiles and takes a sip of her drink. They need this break. He needs his sleep. He looked exhausted and gaunt when he joined her on the plane and she hopes that their time here will put things back home in a better perspective. Nothing is insurmountable.

He stirs and yawns and opens his eyes, glancing over at her. ‘Hey.’

‘Hi,’ she says, unable to stop a smile from spreading across her face. ‘It’s getting late. Do you want to have dinner in the dining room or order room service?’

‘Room service,’ he says. ‘I want you all to myself.’

She feels herself blush and he laughs. ‘Let’s finish our drinks and head in.’

She nods and takes a sip of her Planters’ Punch, willing down the color in her cheeks. Being in bed with him has always been incredible but earlier today… it was electrifying.

Her mind has wandered so much today and she tries to guide it away from this pleasant path now. There will be plenty of time later, she tells herself.

‘I thought we could actually do the Railway Trail on Thursday,’ she suggests. ‘Or even later in the week. I feel like being indulgent and lazy. Is that all right?’

‘Sure, babe,’ he says. ‘Whatever you want.’

She drains the rest of her cocktail and sets the empty glass down. ‘Ready?’ she asks. He nods and stands and they make their way back up to their cottage.

When they get back to the cottage, she intends to suggest they take a quick shower to rinse off the salt water, but he closes the door behind them and immediately backs her up against it.

‘You are so goddamn sexy,’ he tells her, and she feels a wave of heat spread outwards at the gruffness of his voice and the look in his eyes. His hands are busy yanking off her bikini bottoms and she is eager as well, pushing down his swim trunks.

This time is not gentle and loving. She is desperate for him and he is equally desperate for her, driving into her with force as she tries not to score his back with her nails.

She doesn't recognize herself when they are like this. She feels so different from reserved and proper Dr. Olivet that it always surprises her when she feels the rush of passion, of desire, of need. It’s transforming. It’s--everything.

Finally she rests her head against his shoulder, her breath coming in gasps as she tries to recover. His hands are warm on her waist as he supports her and he turns his head to kiss her forehead.

‘God,’ she says at last, still breathless. ‘We should do this all our lives.’

He huffs a laugh and pulls back to look at her. ‘Well, we are pretty good at this.’

She reaches up and touches his cheek lightly. ‘I love you, Mike. I’ll never stop.’

He doesn’t respond, just bends down to kiss her, pulling her away from the door and towards their bedroom.


	11. Blessings

He doesn’t know how he’s gonna be able to let her go. She is the best thing that’s ever happened to him by far and he loves her, he loves her, he loves her.

She’s a beautiful woman and incredible in bed and adventurous and playful and smart as hell but ignoring all that, she is loving and kind and in love with him. That alone would be enough but no, he gets the embarrassment of riches that is Elizabeth Olivet in his life, in his bed, in his heart.

He’s been unlucky for a lot of his life, but having her has made up for all of it and more. 

She is sleeping now, her long hair spread across the pillow. She is curled up on her side and her breathing is deep and steady. They’ve been together so long and he’s watched her sleep so many times that he knows she is deeply asleep now.

He runs a hand over his eyes. Two weeks ago he’d asked Isobel and Nick to meet him for lunch at Le Charlot, that French place they’d gone to the first time he met them for dinner. They agreed and when Isobel accepted, he could hear the undercurrent of excitement in her voice.

He waited until they’d finished their meals to say, ‘Isobel, Nick, I would like to ask for your blessing to propose to Liz.’

Isobel had beamed and then leapt out of her seat, knocking over her glass of wine. She hugged him. He’d never seen her like that before, so happy, so emotional. She’d grown to accept him as Liz’s boyfriend and they liked each other, but he didn’t think she’d be so happy.

Nick was too. He’d stood up and shook his hand, clasping it between both of his, and said, ‘Welcome to the family.’

‘She might not say yes,’ he said.

‘Of course she will,’ Isobel told him. ‘She’s been waiting for you to propose.’

He opens his eyes. She’s been waiting for you to propose. Did she talk to her mother about what she hoped for from their relationship? He didn’t think about it when Isobel said it, but he’s thinking about it now.

They didn’t really talk about their relationship, about where it was going. They had talked about it only once, actually, in the Hamptons, a year after they got together. He asked her if their kids would have everything that she’d had, growing up--not just the money and the education, but the warm and loving family, and time with their parents and grandparents, and space--and she had looked at him, and smiled, and told him yes, yes, she wanted children, she wanted his children… it had flipped his heart over. That she could want that with him… 

But then they stopped talking about the future after she was raped, after he slept with Sherri West. She’d hinted at it a couple times but he knew she didn’t talk about it outright because she didn’t want to press him. But he knew what she wanted. She brought it up when they were in Ireland and pretending to be married so that they could stay in the same room while they traveled. His uncle, who was a priest, asked if he could bless their marriage and he had said yes. And she said that that was what she wanted for real. And then when they went to Maine last summer for a romantic week alone and she said, ‘Maybe one day we can bring our children here.’ And any time she was with one of her nephews or one of his nieces or nephews and looked up at him, a soft smile on her face… 

The ring is in his dresser drawer. He wants to give it to her. He wants to give her everything she wants--the engagement ring, the wedding, a home together, children… 

She stirs and opens her eyes slowly. She looks disoriented for a moment, then her gaze lands on him, and she smiles.

‘Hi,’ she says, her voice a bit husky from both sleep and their earlier exertions. ‘I’m starving.’

‘Me too,’ he says, reaching down to stroke her arm. She feels so good, he thinks. He would happily spend the rest of his life in bed with her, just like this, feeling her soft skin and the warmth of her body and the fire of her love for him.

‘I’ll get the menus,’ she tells him, and rolls out of bed before he can stop her. He watches her as she walks, admiring her pleasing form. She really is stunning. He always has the sense that hundreds of years went into the making of her, this beautiful, graceful woman he’s had the privilege of knowing as well as it is possible to know someone else.

She comes back with the menus and climbs into bed with him, snuggling up against him after handing him a menu. She opens hers and peruses it, but he can’t pay attention with the feel of her bare skin against his, the way she bites her lower lip as she thinks… 

‘I think I’ll have the fish chowder to start and then the grouper,’ she says, turning to look up at him. There must be an expression on his face because she looks worried all of the sudden and shifts her position, turning to look at him. ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing,’ he assures her. ‘It’s nothing. I think I want a steak.’

She studies him for another few moments and he makes sure to keep an easy, relaxed frame of mind. She smiles at last. ‘What do you want to start?’

‘Hmm, maybe the fish chowder too,’ he says.

‘What about dessert?’

‘Whatever you’re having,’ he tells her.

‘All right,’ she says, and leans over to pick up the phone.

He reluctantly watches her dress after she hangs up the phone. He’s still in bed, sprawled out, watching her. She steps into a pair of white cotton underwear, plain but somehow sexy at the same time. She pulls out a frothy nightgown and puts it on and suddenly all he wants to do is yank it off her.

‘You’re just wearin’ that to get the food?’ he asks her incredulously when she turns and smiles at him. 

‘Of course not,’ she says. ‘I’ll put on a robe. Do you want to eat in bed or outside?’

‘Outside,’ he says. He climbs out of bed and walks over to her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She looks up at him and he sees the flush on her cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes, and he grins down at her. ‘God, Lizzie, I want you.’

She breaks out into a huge smile and, once again, his heart clenches. He pushes the guilt aside yet again and bends to kiss her, but before their lips meet there’s a knock at the cottage door.

‘I’ll get it,’ she says, running her hand down his chest. ‘I’ll see you outside.’

‘Okay,’ he says, and she grabs her robe and shrugs into it on her way to the door. 

Dinner is great. She talks about asking the chef for the recipe for the potatoes, which have been layers with smoked salmon and cheese and are, quite frankly, some of the best he’s ever had. She suggests she makes this the next time her parents come for dinner. He changes the subject. 

After dinner they watch the sun set. It’s hard for him to believe that only this morning they saw each other for the first time since he walked out. She seems just the same as she’s always been. 

When the sun sets she lights one of the candles set along the wall of their terrace and sits next to him in his lounge chair. Her hip presses against his and she drapes her legs over his and she leans back against his chest. He wraps his arms around her waist and holds her close. 

It’s peaceful like this, like they were always supposed to be like this. He buries his face in her hair and inhales her scent, trying to memorize it--the faint trace of her perfume, Chanel 19; her shampoo; something indescribable but uniquely her. Her hair is so soft. It’s long now, brushing her shoulders, waving gently when she lets it dry on its own. He feels her sigh, a great, silent exhalation, and she seems to melt into him. 

‘I love you,’ she whispers. ‘I don’t know how I’d ever be able to live without you.’

He closes his eyes. ‘Let’s go to bed, honey,’ he says. She nods and after a moment stands up, leaning forward to blow out the candle.


	12. Sortes Virgilinae

When they’d gone through her ordeal in 1992, he had been a rock. He had told her every day that he loved her, even though she saw the effort it cost him each time. Not because he didn’t love her, but because it was so hard for him to say those words. When did he stop saying he loved her every day? She can’t remember.

It’s obviously hard to say that he loves her now, too, because she has said those words to him several times now and waited for him to reciprocate, and he’s changed the subject.

She wants him to say that he loves her too. She needs him to say it.

He’s asleep now and she was, too, but she woke up after an unsettling dream she can’t quite remember. She is sitting up in bed, looking down at him as he slumbers.

She meant what she said to him earlier, that she doesn’t know how she’d be able to live without him. But luckily she doesn’t have to find that out right now, and hopefully not for years and years and years.

His job has always scared her. She knows better than most what he puts himself through every day. She wants him to be safe; she needs him to be safe. At least Staten Island will be safer than Manhattan. It’s the silver lining to all this.

She knows that jumping back into bed with him right now, after he’s hurt her very badly, isn’t a good idea, especially as they haven’t yet talked. She knows that making such an enormous change to their relationship right now isn’t a good idea either. But she wants and needs that security, she craves it, she is relying on it for the future. But it isn’t the most stable foundation to rebuild their relationship on, even though it appears it would be. A marriage, a legal commitment to each other, children. But she knows that it would just be adding things to their life to distract them from the real issues--that he cheated on her. That he lied for years. That he left.

She’s a psychologist. She knows the issues that he has, even though he won’t admit to many of them. And she wants to help him work through it, but she can’t, not the way he needs. She can’t be his doctor again, and she knows he won’t see another one. And he needs help in some very crucial ways.

She’s not perfect. She has her own issues, too, which she’s aware of and working through. Some will never be resolved, of course, but they can be managed.

The important thing is that they need to work together to build a home and a life. They need to trust each other. They need to make a commitment and stick to it. Sometimes, she knows, you have to take a leap. She’s ready. She’s standing at the edge. She just needs him to jump with her.

She doesn’t fall back to sleep. She can’t, somehow. After tossing and turning for a few hours she finally climbs out of bed and goes into the kitchen to make herself some tea. She picked up some clothes as she left the bedroom--underwear and the sweater she’d brought with her, a light cotton pullover. She brings the tea to their sitting room and writes in her journal, filling up pages and pages of her thoughts.

When the sun starts to rise, she still hasn’t finished writing all she needs to write. There is so much she has to say, but she sets her pen down and goes to make another cup of tea. She brings it outside and perches on the wall surrounding their little patio to watch the glorious sunrise.

Her mind wanders as she watches the day lighten. She wants to get married now, right away. She’s wanted that for a long, long time. But is it a good idea to get married quickly, even if they do start working things out? Are they ready for this?

Before everything happened she would have said yes, of course they were ready. But now…

He’s made it clear by his actions and his continued insistence that “it didn’t mean anything” that he doesn’t value the promises they made to each other. No, they weren’t made in a church or in front of a judge and no, they are not legally binding, but--she trusted him. She trusted he would be true to her and she was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Will she feel better if they vow to be faithful and those promises are legally binding? She would like to think that would be the case, but she doesn’t know. It could just be more devastating if something like this happens again. It would be more devastating.

So perhaps they do need to wait a little bit to get married. But not too long. She’s waited a long, long time now. Trusting him will come again with time, and in the meantime--she loves him, despite it all. One act won’t destroy that, even though it could destroy their relationship if she let it. But love… it doesn’t vanish so easily.

And after something like this happens, she thinks, what are you supposed to do with all the leftover love? It’s not like flicking a switch. It doesn’t turn off. It would spill over and twist, turn bitter and angry and sad, and she doesn’t want that. How could anyone want that?

He only cheated on her once. It only happened once. She doesn’t understand it but she can, perhaps, forgive it--in time. As long as it never happens again.

She’s not a jealous person, but the thought of him with Ms. West…

The memory of the first time she had slept with Mike is blurred by gin. They’d gotten drunk together, but she wasn’t drunk enough that she didn’t know what she was doing. She had wanted him so badly; that want colored the memory too. So it’s not an accurate recollection.

Was it like that with Ms. West--with _Sherri_? He said they had gotten drunk and it didn’t mean anything. Was that how he felt about her, the first night they were together? No, she reminds herself. He pursued her. He wanted her.

But did he want Sherri too?

In some ways they look very different; in others, the same. Sherri is blonde, unlike her, with pale perfect skin not marred by freckles. But they are both slim and have the same sort of look about them. Sherri is beautiful. She herself is thin but not insubstantial. She knows that. And she is attractive. But does he think she’s beautiful and sexy and desirable? What about Ms. West? What did he see when he looked at her? Did he see just how beautiful she is? Did he see a woman he wanted to be with?

And what about her? Who did he see when he looked at her?

She wants to stop thinking about this. She almost can’t bear to think about it. She realizes she’d drawn her knees up to her chest as she’s thought about this, for protection.

She knows that he loves her. She knows that he hasn’t seen Ms. West since it happened. But--but it’s hard to accept that she didn’t mean enough to him to keep him from cheating.

Her mug is empty. The sun has risen. Any desire to further record her thoughts in her journal has left her. She closes her eyes.

 _What is it about her?_ she wonders. _What was it about Sherri West that was--better than me, different than me, more appealing to him? Why her? Why not me? Why?_

She doesn’t have the answer. She might never have the answer.

She doesn’t know how to feel about that.

As the morning wends its way on and he still doesn’t emerge, she thinks about survival. Specifically, what she would do to survive.

She almost didn’t. It sounds like hyperbole but it’s the truth, she almost didn’t survive being raped. Oh, yes, she survived physically. And despite the heavy bruising she was never in any danger of dying on that table. But a part of herself, perhaps the best part, did die in that room, on that table, drugged and unable to scream.

It was hard to work through the fears that arose from that day. It’s still hard. It’s a struggle every day. But it’s gotten easier over the years and it will continue to get easier.

Was sleeping with Sherri his way to survive what had happened? It happened to her, yes, but it also happened to him, and their relationship was held in abeyance for a time. And there was Phil, too--his partner getting shot with him in the room, in hiding in a closet… maybe if that hadn’t happened, he wouldn’t have cheated on her.

She can see why he did what he did, but she still, won’t ever understand it.

They’re going to go sailing tomorrow. Today they’re just taking things easy, so she shouldn’t be frustrated that he’s sleeping in. But she’s feeling anxious, and hot in this sweater now that the sun is beaming down, and she’s tired, so tired, so, so, tired. She just wants to sleep and wake up and realize that all of this has been a bad dream.

She knows that won’t happen, but she stands up and goes back inside.

He’s still asleep, sprawled in their tangled sheets. To her surprise, it’s only seven thirty. She climbs back into bed next to him, curling up against him, and closes her eyes.

She can hear his breathing. She can feel the steady thrum of his heart. She can smell his scent, his cologne and the faint trace of the rum he drank last night and the scent that is just him. She can feel the springy hairs on his legs and his chest and the strength of his resting limbs and the heat of his body.

She loves him. She wants to feel his body on top of her, the weight and heat of it, and she wants his hands on her, on her waist and between her legs and…

She opens her eyes, hearing the change in her breathing, feeling the familiar warmth tightening low in her stomach. She lies very still and doesn’t wake him up, even though she knows he’d be thrilled to be woken up like this. After a moment she rolls out of bed again, silently, but this time she collects her swimsuit--the one-piece she likes for serious swimming--and a sarong and stops in the kitchen to write him a note, telling him she’s gone down to the beach.

She swims out a long way, then back, then out again. She has so much nervous energy this morning that she just wants to get rid of it. Halfway through her third lap, closer in this time, she dives down deep then comes back up, letting herself float on her back.

She has a good memory; she always has. At quiet times like this she lets her mind sift through the accumulation of poetry and songs and prose she’s collected unwittingly throughout the years--a kind of personal Sortes Virgilianae or I Ching.

_Look! Your eyes are seacolor. Look! Your eyes are sky color._

Of course that would be the first thing that comes to mind, she thinks. Another time when she had been injured and was here, just here, wondering what would happen next.

She closes her eyes and lets the sun warm her, letting her mind sift through the pieces.

_And I thought I saw you cheating once or twice._

Joni Mitchell. That album they’d listened to…

_These days you measure people by their kindness and their capacity for devotion._

Mrs. Dalloway, who will buy the flowers herself.

_The tragedy is not that love doesn’t last. The tragedy is the love that lasts._

Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus. She’d loaned him her copy years ago and he’d liked it, though he said he’d thought it was too long. She hopes that their love lasts. God, she hopes it does. She opens her eyes and thinks to herself, _But be careful, Elizabeth. Be careful what you wish for._

She has to go in. She’s starving and he should be awake by now--not to mention that breakfast will arrive at nine. She turns and heads to the beach.


	13. Make It Right

When he wakes up she isn’t there.

The desolation that hits him is immediate and total. Her side of the bed is cool to the touch, so it’s not as though she’d just risen for the day. She wasn’t here. He gets out of bed and goes to find her.

He finds her note on the counter.

_Couldn’t sleep--went for a swim. Back before breakfast. xxx_

His pounding heart starts to slow. _She’s just at the beach._ He heads back to their room to shower and dress for the day.

As he showers, he thinks, _If I feel like this waking up alone, how am I gonna be able to live without her?_ He realizes, finally, that he can’t.

This shouldn’t be a revelation to him. In the almost-four years they’ve been together they spent _maybe_ thirty nights apart total, most of them from the first six months of their relationship. And even though they didn’t have sex every night--there was a two-week dry spell in there when he was working a tough case the first year of their relationship and he’d gone back to her place and collapsed at two a.m.--they were _together_. Most of the time, when he had to head in early, she’d get up with him and have a cup of coffee before he had to head in to the precinct.

He can’t give that up. He can’t give her up. He was stupid to think that he’d be noble enough to do that. So he won’t.

But the thing is, he can’t ask her to marry him.

They have a lot of shit to work through. Not just the mess he’s made of their personal life, but the professional stuff too. They have too much to work through right now to propose and, quite frankly, he can’t see a time when he’ll feel comfortable doing so.

She hasn’t brought up marriage in a long time. She hasn’t brought up kids, either. Maybe she doesn’t want that anymore.

Yeah, he knows that’s not the case. But he can hope.

Maybe they can just live together like Peter and Miranda. No marriage, no kids, at least not for a while. Not until they work through this shit and he gets back to the city and he’s sure he can be there for her. Then he’ll feel like they can go on with their lives.

He hopes it doesn’t take too long.

By the time she gets back room service has come and their breakfast has been set up on the patio table. He sees her coming down the path, so he pours her cup of coffee and adds cream, stirring it for her. As she comes closer he sees how tired she looks, not just from her swim but also from not sleeping.

‘Hi, darling,’ she says, bending to kiss him lightly before taking her seat. ‘Have you been waiting long?’

‘Nope, it just got here,’ he says, watching as she sips her coffee. ‘Sorry you couldn’t sleep.’

She shrugs. ‘It’s fine. I went for a swim, so at least I felt productive.’

He nods. ‘Well, you can take a nap later if you want.’

‘I might do that.’

She opens her napkin, spreads it on her lap, and picks up a piece of toast to butter. The silence suddenly feels stifling. He cuts into his omelette.

‘So what to d’you want to do today?’ he asks her after five minutes of silence interrupted only by the clink of silverware against plates.

She looks up at him and smiles absentmindedly. ‘I wouldn’t mind going for another swim. But what would you like to do?’

He shrugs. ‘Sounds good.’

She smiles again, the same sort of smile, and turns back to her poached eggs.

He watches her throughout the rest of the meal. She seems… not spacy, but not fully here. As though her mind is completely on something else, as though she’ll turn and look at him and have to wait a minute before she knows where she is. She taps the placemat with her finger to the beat of some unheard tune. Her eyes look out at the ocean but he can tell that’s not what she’s seeing.

What is she thinking? He’s never been able to tell and now least of all. And when she finishes her breakfast, she sets her silverware neatly on the plate and turns to him, her eyes still not really seeing him, and says, ‘I’ll get the beach bag ready.’

He nods and smiles and thanks her but she doesn’t pay attention.

When they get down to the beach she swims out right away, and not only out, but far out. He sees her float on her back. What is she thinking?

He tries to read his book, a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. He can’t. He keeps looking out at her.

When she finally swims back in it’s past noon. He’s starving, despite having breakfast a few hours ago, and she looks a bit hungry too. She smiles at him more easily now and says, ‘Do you want to have lunch here, or back at the cottage, or on the terrace?’

‘Let’s eat at the restaurant,’ he says, not wanting another odd silence. ‘Do we need to change?’

She shakes her head. ‘No, I’ll just put on my coverup and you can wear your shirt.’

He nods and dresses; she does too, and they collect their bag and head up to the restaurant.

After they’ve been seated and they order, he asks, ‘What were you thinkin’ about way out there?’

She blushes, embarrassed, and toys with her fork as she decides what to say. She’s saved for a moment by the arrival of their drinks, and she stirs her Planters’ Punch with vigor as she continues to think.

‘Have you heard of the I Ching?’ she asks him at last. ‘Or the Sortes Virgilinae?’

He shakes his head. ‘What are they at home?’

She smiles a bit. ‘It’s a form of divination, randomly pointing at words in a particular text and those words telling you the future.’

‘I didn’t know you were into fortune telling, Lizzie,’ he says, startled by her words.

‘I’m not, really,’ she says. ‘But I’ve always done this thing… I’ve accumulated so many phrases and song lyrics and quotes in my life that sometimes, when I am trying to figure something out…’ she slows and consciously thinks of each word. ‘Sometimes,’ she continues at last, ‘sometimes I am quiet and let my mind sort through the phrases that rise to the surface to see how I feel.’

That hits him in the gut. That she doesn’t know how she’s feeling. She always knows--that’s who she is. She is confident of herself. Hell, most of the time she knows what he’s thinking, too.

‘So, what came to mind today?’ he asks her, deliberately casual.

She closes her eyes. ‘I thought about lots of things. A lot of Anne Sexton.’

‘What was one of them?’ he presses.

She sighs and for a long moment he’s sure she won’t speak. But then she does, reciting a bit of poetry, her voice carefully emotionless. ‘“I was bruised. You could not miss. Dreaming gives one such bad luck and I had ordered this.”’

He doesn’t understand what she’s saying, not really, but he gets the gist of it. She opens her eyes and looks at him and he meets her gaze for an instant before he has to look away.

The tension is broken by their food arriving. She busies herself with putting her napkin on her lap, then taking another sip of her drink. 

‘I didn’t know I hurt you so much,’ he says at last, quietly.

She doesn’t look up. ‘Yes, well,’ she says, picking up her sandwich with deliberate care. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’

She bites into her sandwich and chews it slowly while he just stares at her. He doesn’t know what to say either. She sets the sandwich down at last and meets his eyes.

‘I won’t pretend that you didn’t,’ she tells him, her voice low. ‘And I know this is hardly the time or place to discuss it. But it wasn’t just the… the act,’ she stumbles. ‘It was you leaving so abruptly.’

‘I know,’ he says, ‘I know.’ He sighs, takes a long drink, then says, ‘Let’s talk about it when we’re finished with lunch. We can go for a walk.’

‘Okay,’ she says.

‘Okay,’ he echoes.

Lunch drags and despite the good food and good weather and good booze nothing lightens the suddenly oppressive mood at their table. They don’t talk, except when Liz says she wants to change out of her swimsuit before their walk. He agrees.

Lunch finally finishes and she signs the chit and they head back, silently, to their cottage. She changes into a light sundress--it’s hot today--and he puts on shorts and a tshirt.

‘Ready?’ he asks. She nods, her face drawn and tense. They leave the cottage and he locks the door behind them, then they head down to the beach by the private stairway.

They walk past the crowd at the beach and only then does she begin to speak.

‘I want you to tell me about it,’ she begins. ‘How it happened, where it happened, what happened… I want to hear it.’

He looks over at her, seeing her profile. She keeps her gaze fixed in front of them and her expression is set. ‘You sure?’ he asks, his heart thumping with dread.

She nods. ‘I’m sure. I need to know, Mike. Just--just tell me what happened. Don’t editorialize.’

‘Okay,’ he says again, clearing his throat. ‘Uh, I was testifyin’, that day. We fought that mornin’.’ He stops.

‘Go on,’ she prompts.

‘I wasn’t called till the end of the day. So I was pissed off, waiting, and angry because I was cruel to you…’ he trails off again. ‘I can’t do this, Liz.’

‘I need you to,’ she says. ‘I need to know.’

He sighs, rubbing his eyes. ‘So I finally get called and I head in and Sherri does the cross. And I was glad she didn’t make me look stupid or anything, because I wasn’t even supposed to testify--it was supposed to be Phil.’

‘And what did you think of her? Had you noticed her before?’ She’s using her doctor’s voice, cool and dispassionate.

‘Yeah,’ he admits reluctantly. ‘When she did the witness prep. I thought she was attractive--but Lizzie--’

‘No editorializing,’ she reminds him. ‘You noticed her. What happened after you finished testifying?’

‘I went to a bar around the corner from the courthouse. I needed a drink. So I was halfway through my second beer when she showed up. And she said I did a good job. So I thanked her and she joined me and we had a couple more. And then--’ he breaks off again. He’d thought earlier that the hardest thing he’s ever done is get on the plane with her, but he was wrong. This is.

‘What happened next?’ she prompts.

‘We left the bar. I was drunk. We’d been flirting.’ He’s trying to soften what happened and he’s trying not to look at her as they walk. He can’t help it. Her face is drawn and set but she doesn’t say anything except to prompt him and doesn’t look at him. ‘She said her place was around the corner and I kissed her.’

She finally reacts, inhaling sharply. Her face contracts with pain for a brief instant, but she still doesn’t look at him, and when she speaks her voice is smooth and not ragged with the pain he knows she must be feeling. ‘And then?’

‘And we went back to her place,’ he says, praying that this is over. ‘And then afterwards, I headed back to mine and showered, then went to see Phil, then I came back to your apartment and apologized.’

‘Okay,’ she says quietly, as they reach the end of the beach. She stops and looks up at him. ‘I’ve got to ask, Mike--what was it about it her that was… better than me, that appealed to you more? What was it about Sherri?’ Her voice breaks on her name, but she charges forward. ‘Is there something I could do differently, or better?’

His heart is breaking at her words, at her clear belief that she wasn’t enough for him. He wants to embrace her, he wants to kiss her, he wants to reassure her that he’s not good enough for her. ‘It wasn’t you,’ he says instead, lamely. ‘It wasn’t--it wasn’t about you.’

Her expression doesn’t change but he sees something in her eyes--disappointment at his poorly-expressed answer, maybe, or she’s trying to hide the pain she obviously still feels, or something else.

‘It wasn’t anything--it didn’t mean anything,’ he presses on. ‘It was a release of frustration. I was frustrated with what was happening and angry that I couldn’t help you… I wish I hadn’t done it.’

She searches his eyes as he tries to decide what to say next. He can’t think of how to express it and he spreads his hands in a silent plea for acceptance.

At last, at last, she speaks. She says, ‘I know we aren’t married. We aren’t engaged. But we still made promises to each other. And your continued repetition of “it means nothing”--it makes me think that you don’t value the promises we’ve made. Because if this was “nothing”...’ she breaks off. ‘If this was nothing, than what do our promises mean, in the end?’

She has a good point, but he doesn’t know what to say. They stand there for a long time on this beautiful beach, on this beautiful island, before he says, ‘It won’t happen again. I promise you.’

‘I want to believe you,’ she says, holding his gaze. ‘And I will. The thing is, believing you… it’s not a static thing. It will be a choice every day. And I won’t pretend I’m not still upset, or hurt, or angry. Because I will be--probably for the rest of my life. But I love you, and I don’t want our relationship to be ruined because of this.’

‘Thank you,’ he says fervently. He feels as though he’s been granted parole. ‘I don't either.’

‘Good,’ she says. ‘We still have things to work through, but I think this is enough for now.’

He nods and then pulls her into a hug. She holds him tight, her cheek pressed against his chest, her tears dampening his shirt. He kisses the top of her head and they stand there for a long time, just holding each other.


	14. Salt Water

Hearing what happened from him… that he found her attractive… that they were flirting… that he kissed her… each word is like a bullet through her heart, a kick in her stomach, a knife cutting through her. The other things--that she asked him to come home with her, for one--don’t cut as deeply as the things he did of his own volition.

And his explanation… how can he think that’s enough? But she knows that he’s bad with words at the times he needs them the most. But he promised it wouldn’t happen again. She has to believe that, because she doesn’t want to lose him.

She knows what happened now. Will she be able to move past it, to set it aside, now that she knows? She’s afraid that she won’t.

She tells herself that she needs to let it rest now. Going over it again and again with him or in her own mind will only make it worse. She knows what happened; _let it be, let it heal_ , she tells herself.

They walked back to the club hand in hand. It was a relief to feel her hand in his, the solidity of it. She had to keep herself from clinging to it, to him--the last thing they need right now is that. It’s time for them to rebuild their relationship as equals.

More importantly, they shouldn’t just hop back into bed together. They should talk; they should talk about their future and where things will go and what they will do when they get home.

They’re going on a sunset sail this evening with two other couples who are staying here. She would have preferred to take a boat out themselves but it didn’t work out that way this time, and honestly, after their conversation, she’ll be glad of a distraction to keep her mind off of things.

 _He kissed her_ , she thinks again, for the dozenth time at least since he told her what had happened. Somehow that hurts almost as badly as the knowledge that he slept with her. She could almost dismiss the fact that they had sex as what he said it was: a release of frustration. But a kiss is so private, so intimate… and he initiated it…

‘D’you want to eat before we go out on the water, or after?’ he asks her, pulling her out of her thoughts.

She’s grateful for the distraction. ‘We should probably have something to eat before we go. I’m hungry already.’

He lifts their joined hands to check his watch. ‘It’s past four, we’ve gotta hurry if we’re leavin’ at five-thirty,’ he says.

She nods. They’re almost back at their cottage; the clubhouse is in sight.

‘We can order room service,’ she suggests, and he squeezes her hand in agreement.

When they reach their cottage she flops down on the sofa, exhausted from their long walk. ‘Suddenly I’m glad I’m not captaining the boat,’ she admits.

He grins at her. ‘It’ll be nice just to hold you instead of havin’ you run around manning the boat.’

He’s obviously trying to get things back to normal. Well, she should meet him halfway. She smiles back up at him. ‘That will be nice.’

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Uh, let me order somethin’ while you shower. What are you in the mood for?’

She shrugs. ‘Maybe a club sandwich? Something light.’

‘Great,’ he says.

She levers herself up from the sofa. ‘I’m going to shower now.’

‘Okay, babe,’ he says.

She heads back to their bedroom and sheds her sundress. She pads naked into the bathroom and turns on the shower. She stands under the hot water and lets it ease the tension she feels.

Feeling refreshed at last, she steps out of the shower and dries off, leaving her damp hair loose on her shoulders to dry. She puts on new underwear and a bra, both cotton bordered with lace, then slips on another sundress, one that he likes--cream cotton, with a fitted bodice and a nice loose skirt. It might not be the best idea for a sail, but she wants to look beautiful for him, even after everything. She wants to remind him of what he has.

She brushes out her hair. She’ll pull it back with a clip when it dries, but right now she lets it stay loose. She doesn’t put on makeup; she’ll put on her tinted chapstick after they eat. She studies herself in the mirror, looking at herself with a critical eye.

She has the start of a tan, which always makes her look better. Despite her extremely restless night and her lack of a nap, she looks more rested than she has since this all began. The tension in her eyes has eased a bit, too.

 _It’s over_ , she tells herself. _It happened years ago. He explained it. We’ll talk about the rest of it later. You’ve chosen to be with him, so make the best of it. You love him. Let yourself be happy with him._

She tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear and straightens up. She can hear Mike greeting the person delivering their room service; it’s time to eat and get ready.

She steps out of the bathroom and walks down the hall to the living room. He’s just closing the cottage door, and when he turns and sees her he stops. She stops too, suddenly shy. She thinks, _this is how it will be, when we see each other before our wedding. This is exactly how he’ll look._

‘You look gorgeous,’ he tells her. ‘You’re so beautiful, Lizzie.’

She steps into his arms.

They walk, hand in hand again, up to the clubhouse. They’re to meet there at five thirty and then they’ll head over to Albuoy’s Point, near the Yacht Club, for their sail. The other two couples on this sail are also guests of the club; they are all to meet in the lobby.

They’re the second couple to arrive, she notes as they step into the lobby. The other two people waiting are a couple in their mid-forties. She smiles at them as Mike guides her over to the sofa facing theirs. They stop their conversation and the woman says to them, ‘Are you doing the sunset sail too?’

‘Yes,’ she says, feeling Mike settle his arm around her shoulder. ‘We are.’

‘Great,’ says the woman. ‘I’m Sally Walter, and this is my husband Will.’

‘I’m Liz Olivet and this is Mike Logan,’ she says, leaning forward to shake Sally and Will’s hands. Sally is also wearing a dress, a vibrant blue and white patterned linen shift, while Will is wearing Bermuda shorts, knee socks, and an oxford and blazer. Mike is dressed similarly, but with khakis instead of shorts and a blue shirt with no blazer. Mike does the same, and when she leans back against the sofa he puts his arm back around her shoulders. She relishes the feel of it, the signal that he is where he wants to be.

Sally is talking. ‘This is our first trip to Bermuda. We live in Atlanta and it’s just been so hot and humid lately that when one of Will’s clients offered us a week here, we jumped on it!’

‘That’s wonderful,’ she says, making conversation. ‘What do you do, Will?’

‘I’m in advertising,’ he says. ‘What do you both do?’

‘Liz is a psychologist and I’m with the NYPD,’ Mike says, his hand caressing her shoulder. He usually hates small talk, so she’s surprised he’s chiming in.

‘How interesting,’ Sally says, leaning forward. She begins to pepper Mike with questions, though they’re interrupted by another couple joining them.

There’s another round of introductions--this couple is about her age, Cathy Berman and Roger Mitchell. They’re from Boston and they both work in publishing.

Before they can get into more details about themselves, their driver comes to collect them to bring them to the boat. She stays close to MIke, letting the other people go ahead of them, and holds his hand.

It’s a quick drive and when they arrive they are greeted by the captain of the beautiful Friendship sloop, Jacob Norton. The sloop, _Tir Na Nog_ , is beautiful, a classic that Jacob tells them was built over fifty years ago. When they’re welcomed aboard, Jacob’s wife, a stunning woman named Natalie, greets them and makes them all cocktails. To her surprise and relief, Mike doesn’t flirt with Natalie, or with Sally or Cathy. It’s a change--he flirts reflexively with any attractive woman, and all the women here tonight are attractive.

While the captain and his wife prepare the boat, they all find a place to sit. Mike leans against the cabin and she settles down next to him, nearly spilling her drink when he pulls her into his lap instead. After a moment, she relaxes, settling back against his chest, and looks out at the water.

For a moment she just enjoys the peace of this--the feeling of his arm around her waist, her body pressed against his, the way the breeze blows over them and the sound of the snapping of the sails. Then the moment is broken by Cathy plopping down across from them.

‘Hi!’ she says. ‘Where are you two from?’

She could tell upon meeting Cathy that she was a talkative, Junior League-type. She smiles at her. ‘We’re from Manhattan.’

‘Oh, I love New York,’ Cathy says. ‘We try to go down a lot, Roger is from Locust Valley but his parents have a place in the city.’

‘My father is from Locust Valley,’ she says.

‘What a small world!’ Cathy enthuses, then calls to Roger. ‘Roger, Liz’s father is from Locust Valley!’

Roger comes over. ‘What a small world!’ he echoes. ‘Where did he grow up?’

She wants to sigh, to say they’ll talk about it later, to say she just wants some quiet time with Mike. But she can’t be rude. ‘Peacock Point, in a house called Inis Fada. His sister lives in the house now, Janet Armstrong.’

‘I know exactly where that is,’ Roger says. ‘My parents have a place on Overlook Road.’

‘Is that close by?’ Mike asks, his hand tightening on her waist.

She twists to look at him. He looks interested, not bored by the conversation as she feared.

‘Yes, Inis Fada is on Overlook Road, the end of it, though.’

‘My parents are between the village and St. John’s,’ Roger adds.

‘It is a very small world,’ she agrees, not knowing what else to say.

‘Isn’t Inis Fada a Pratt house?’ Roger asks suddenly.

She feels suddenly embarrassed. She knows, obviously, that Mike knows that her parents have money. But she doesn’t think he realizes that her great-grandfather was Charles Pratt.

‘Yes,’ she admits, hoping to stop that line of questioning here. She can feel Mike’s curiosity.

‘What does that mean?’ Cathy asks.

‘Charles Pratt, the industrialist, you know,’ Roger explains. ‘The founder of the Pratt Institute, and he was part of Standard Oil… he built all these estates for his children and grandchildren.’

Thankfully she’s not forced to go into this when Natalie announces their route. Cathy goes over to question her in more detail and Roger follows her.

She sighs and leans back against him, taking a sip of her cocktail. He kisses the nape of her neck and then she feels him shift and take a sip of his drink, too.

They sit silently, watching as they sail around the island. It’s peaceful, despite the chatter from Cathy and Roger, peppering Natalie and Jacob with questions. Sally and Will are on the other side of the boat and they talk quietly to themselves.

It feels so nice to be here with him, the feeling of the boat rocking and his arms around her soothing the wounds from today’s conversation. The evening is cooling as the sun lowers in the sky, but she’s warm with his presence. How can this be the case? she wonders.

She doesn’t have the answer; she only knows that it’s so.

The boat is anchored in a spot that is, Jacob assures them, the best place to watch the sunset. Natalie comes around and refills everyone’s glasses. Roger asks Natalie to take a photgraph of him with Cathy, and she and Mike turn to watch them as they stand at the bow. Natalie aims the camera and takes a picture, and then Roger takes Cathy’s hands in his and kneels and asks her to marry him.

Mike’s arm around her waist has tightened involuntarily to the point of extreme discomfort but she cannot move to ease his grip, nor can she speak. She finds she has a wooden smile on her face, she can feel it, and when Mike adds his voice to the chorus of congratulations she can hear the tension in it, too.

Cathy makes the tour of everyone, holding out her ring--a large princess-cut diamond--for everyone’s admiration. She is a person, she thinks, for whom the world holds only friends. Cathy tells everyone how they met--she can’t pay attention to it.

She wouldn’t want him to propose in front of people, especially not strangers, but Cathy and Roger’s obvious happiness only highlights how unsure she still feels about him, about their future, about what can be theirs and what might not be.

She had been feeling so positive about this evening. His face when he saw her in her dress… the way he’s held her… she wants to cry now. His arm is too loose around her waist, barely there, and if she shifted even the slightest amount he wouldn’t be holding her any more.

He’s obviously uncomfortable with the turn tonight has taken. Is it because he wants to propose on this trip and he feels as though he’s been preempted? Is it because he doesn’t want to propose and he is afraid she will bring it up and force them to have a conversation about something they have rarely ever discussed?

She doesn’t know.

The sunset is beautiful, streaks of red and gold and purple across the air. When she turns to look at him she sees his eyes are downcast, looking down into his empty glass.


	15. Slipping

She is sleeping soundly next to him, the strap of her nightgown slipping down her shoulder. When the sail was over and they were dropped back at the club, she said she wasn’t hungry for dinner and wanted to go to bed. So she did.

He stayed up for a while. He was hungry, so he finished her leftover club sandwich. Then he tried to read for a while, but that didn’t work. There’s no TV in their cottage, so he didn’t even have that distraction.

He finally showered and went to bed. It’s the first time in a very, very long time that they’ve slept in the same bed but haven’t had sex. Maybe that’s why he’s spent the past two hours tossing and turning. Maybe it has nothing to do with the proposal they witnessed.

He was startled that that guy wanted to propose in public and more startled that the woman accepted. But Liz… he knew that Liz wouldn’t want a public proposal. She’d want something heartfelt and meaningful and, most of all, private. She’s a private person, after all.

He had felt her rapt attention on the proposal, on the ring. So his hope that she didn’t want to get married was a futile one, he knows now.

He sighs. He’s exhausted but he doesn’t know how he’ll be able to get to sleep. He feels tense, filled with nervous energy. If they were at home he’d go for a run or go play a pickup game of basketball, get all this stuff out. Is this how she felt this morning, when she woke up early and went for a swim?

He climbs out of bed. He should go for a run, he thinks. He can run on the beach. The moon is full. But as he walks over to the closet he looks back at her, then heads back to their bed.

‘Lizzie,’ he says, hearing the urgency in his voice. He rests his hand on her shoulder and she begins to stir. ‘Lizzie.’

‘What is it?’ she asks, her voice thick with exhaustion. ‘Is everything okay?’ He doesn’t know what to say and she opens her eyes, looking up at him. ‘Mike?’

He bends to kiss her, a deep kiss, a kiss that shows her just how much he needs her. He pushes the covers away from her and pulls her close and he feels her relax into him and respond and wrap her arms around him.

He wakes up to the sound of clinking silverware and china in the kitchen. He opens his eyes and sits up; Liz isn’t next to him, so she must be setting up breakfast. He yawns, stretches, and heads to the bathroom before getting dressed and joining her.

She is outside on the patio, sipping her coffee, and she looks up when he steps outside.

‘Good morning,’ she says.

‘Good morning,’ he replies. They stare at each other for a moment before he looks away and takes his seat across from her. He wants to distract himself, prepare his coffee or his breakfast or whatever, but she’s already done that for him. She makes their life run so smoothly, down to this, even. It astonishes him every time.

‘What would you like to do today?’ she asks him after they both begin to eat.

He thought about this a lot last night. ‘I thought that maybe we could rent a moped and explore the island,’ he suggests.

‘That’s a great idea,’ she says, and smiles. ‘We can go up to St. George’s, maybe. It’s beautiful there and we didn’t really explore the town last time.’

‘Great,’ he says. They turn back to their breakfast, then something occurs to him. ‘Yesterday you seemed pretty uncomfortable when you guys were talkin’ about the town where your dad grew up.’

‘Yes,’ she says slowly. ‘I was, a little.’

‘What made you uncomfortable?’

‘The conversation about Charles Pratt,’ she says, then takes a sip of coffee. ‘I don’t really talk about it, but he was my great-grandfather.’

‘What?’ he asks, actually shocked. He didn’t think of that. He knew she came from a lot of money--that was really obvious--but not _that_.

‘Yes, my father’s mother, Margaret, was his youngest child--she was born well after all of the other children, not very long before he died. And he’d had the house, Inis Fada, built for her when she was very small, before he died. So she grew up in it, and stayed there, and when she married my grandfather she and my grandfather remained there. When my parents married, my grandparents offered them the smaller house on the property, with the understanding that they would move into the big house when my grandparents died. But my mother wanted to remain in the city and Connecticut. So they did that instead, and my father’s younger sister Janet stayed at Inis Fada.’ She meets his gaze, looking very calm. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t share that with you before. It’s not a big deal. We rarely see Janet anyway and she’s the one who really dines out on that.’

‘Wow,’ he says at last, giving a little laugh. He doesn’t know what else to do. ‘I had no idea.’

‘It’s not a big deal,’ she says again. ‘It really isn’t.’

‘I dunno, having a Gilded Age industrialist as my great-grandfather would be a pretty big deal to me. I wouldn’t want to hide that.’ He can’t keep the bitter edge from his voice.

‘I wasn’t hiding it,’ she retorts. ‘It’s not like we’ve gone through our entire genealogies for each other.’

‘Well, you’ve met most of my family, and there’s no one so illustrious.’ He doesn’t know why he’s upset with her. It doesn’t change anything, does it?

Her mouth tightens, then she takes a deep, deliberate breath. ‘Mike,’ she says. ‘Having a so-called “illustrious” ancestor isn’t important to me. I never knew him--he died in the 1890s. My father never knew him. My grandmother barely knew him. I wasn’t trying to hide anything; there was just never a reason to bring it up. All right?’

‘Okay,’ he says, holding up his hands, giving up his odd annoyance with her. ‘All right.’

She nods and looks down at her plate, toying with her fork. The silence between them is excruciating.

He finally breaks it. ‘So, the moped--do we call the desk?’

She leans back in her chair. ‘I think they could arrange for a moped, yes.’

‘Great,’ he says. ‘So, what d’you want to go when we get there?’

‘The town itself is lovely, so we can wander around. We can head up to the Unfinished Church--it’s beautiful there. It’s the oldest continuously inhabited English-speaking town in the Western Hemisphere. We can go to Spittal Pond, which has the first sign of habitation in Bermuda, and there are some lovely beaches, so we should bring our swimsuits. Oh, and there are a couple good restaurants for lunch.’

‘Great,’ he says again.

‘What do you want to start out doing?’

‘Maybe we can wander around the town for a bit,’ he suggests. ‘Then have lunch and go to a beach.’

‘Good idea,’ she agrees, and stands up. ‘I’ll call the front desk.’

Two hours later they are on their way. Liz offers to drive, but he declines. He got used to driving on the left in Ireland, and she says the way is very simple--they just need to follow the signs.

They head off. Despite the tension from last night and this morning, he’s enjoying the ride--her body pressed against his, her chuckle of delight as they head along the water. It’s a beautiful day and he finds himself relaxing as they drive. It’ll be a good day after all, he thinks.

He finds a place to park and does so, then helps Lizzie off the moped. She’s smiling.

‘That was a lovely ride,’ she says, squeezing his hand. ‘I’d forgotten how beautiful it was on this part of the island.’

‘Yeah,’ he agrees. ‘It’s great. So where do you want to go first?’

She drags him into several tiny shops--a perfumerie, where she buys new perfume for herself. She also chooses new perfume for her relatives, which they assure her they will ship home for her. They go to the English Sports Shop and again she purchases things for her family.

‘We’re not gonna be able to drive back with all this stuff,’ he protests, loaded down with sweaters and belts and other stuff.

‘I’ll have this shipped home too,’ she says, then pays for her purchases, filling out a delivery form.

He’ll never get used to the way she so easily spends money. She doesn’t need to think about it, not like him. He scrimped and saved for years to buy the engagement ring he can’t give her now, and here she is, spending a ton on sweaters that no one needs. He takes a deep breath. It’s not his money, she can spend it the way she likes. And she obviously has a lot of it if it’s Standard Oil money.

‘Ready?’ she asks. ‘I think it’s past time for lunch.’

‘I agree,’ he says with relief, and she smiles at him, taking his hand and leading him out of the shop.


	16. If We Were

He is a good sport, letting himself be dragged along to different shops. She normally wouldn’t indulge in so much shopping, but she wanted something to diffuse the uneasy tension that has marred most of the day, and being distracted by shops was good. He manages to channel whatever he was feeling earlier into hiding his impatience, and by the time they finish at the second shop she feels as though they’re on more equal footing.

They head to the pub for lunch. They walk hand in hand, in step with each other. She feels as though they’re finding their footing again, finally, after slipping a few times.

This morning’s little contretemps over her great-grandfather was unsettling. He knows, or ought to know by now, that they come from very different backgrounds. That doesn’t bother her. She loves him. She thought that he’d gotten past the discomfort it caused him. Apparently he hasn’t.

Well, he’ll have to find a way to move past it if he wants to continue their relationship. She can’t believe that they argued about something so small in the scheme of things. Her great-grandfather died almost sixty years before she was born. If they hadn’t met Roger and Cathy, Mike would likely never have known, because it has no importance whatsoever.

She’s tired of fighting.

They’ve had their share of arguments and disagreements--over who would pay for dinner or his flirtations or her family or his father… all normal things. But this is ridiculous. She can’t help who her great-grandfather was.

They find a table and each order something to drink. He orders a local beer, while she has a cocktail. She wants to relax. She wants them to enjoy the day together.

He says, ‘So now that you’ve singlehandledly boosted Bermuda’s economy, what do you want to do next?’

She looks down at her menu, wondering if she’s imagining the bitter edge to his voice. ‘I like bringing presents back for the people I love.’

‘Yeah, I guess that’s something I’ll never understand, spending so much money on things that don’t mean anything to the person gettin’ them. I’d just send a postcard.’

No, she thinks. She’s not imagining it. ‘What do you feel like for lunch?’

She looks up in time to catch his shrug. ‘I dunno. A burger, maybe.’

He is tense, shifting in his seat, sprawling his legs then moving them again. She pretends she doesn’t notice. ‘I think I’ll have the fish sandwich.’

‘Okay,’ he says. He takes a sip of beer, jiggling his leg under the table. His obvious discomfort is making her extremely anxious and she finds herself fidgeting as well. She forces herself to stop when the waiter comes to take their order.

Mike doesn’t speak after they hand their menus to the waiter. He looks down at the table and drinks his beer and makes it clear that he is not in the mood for conversation. What’s changed? she thinks with despair.

She tries to start several conversations anyway--about the options for the beach this afternoon, what they should do for dinner, what presents they should find for his nieces and nephews. Each attempt is rebuffed, and at her last topic of conversation he snaps, ‘Don’t you get that my family would be insulted by the amount of money you spend on presents? Especially because it’s not even Christmas or a birthday. They wouldn’t be able to reciprocate and they’d feel bad about it and they’d feel like you were rubbin’ your Standard Oil money in their face.’

She closes her eyes and tries to think of the best way to respond. ‘I just thought it would be a nice gesture,’ she says at last.

‘Well, you thought wrong,’ he tells her.

Their food arrives, thank God, putting an end to the conversation. She concentrates on eating, though she is still very aware of his tense movements, the way he hunches his shoulders.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, she thinks. It was never supposed to be like this. Here they are in this beautiful place to reconnect and all they are doing is putting up walls between them, to keep each other at arms’ length. He is doing that more than she is, but still, here she is, sitting silently because she cannot bear to hear him snap at her again if she tries to speak with him.

She knows that she needs to show him that she can be vulnerable, too, if they are going to rebuild their relationship. She needs to show him how hurt she is and how he is hurting her now, like this.

They need to talk about the future. They need to talk about ways to communicate with each other. They need to talk about ways to work through their issues.

They finish their lunch. She says, ‘I want to show you the Unfinished Church.’

‘I’m not one for religion,’ he tells her. ‘You should know that.’

‘It’s a beautiful place, Mike, I just want you to see it. It was never used as a church.’

‘Fine,’ he says, setting down his nearly-empty glass with a bit of force. ‘Let’s go, then.’

She pays the bill--for once, there’s no discussion over who will pay it. She knows that’s not a good thing this time. They leave the pub and make their way to the moped.

‘Can we walk?’ he asks.

‘Yes. It’s not very far.’

‘Lead the way,’ he says.

The five minute walk to the church seems to take hours. They don’t speak. They don’t hold hands. He doesn’t attempt to touch her in any way. She feels completely helpless to do anything. She has no idea what to say.

In all their life together, she’s never felt like this.

They reach the church at last. They are the only ones there, and although the church is close to the road as soon as they step within the ruins there is only silence.

He walks away from her, wandering around the inside of the church, while she makes her way to where the altar would have been. Reaching it, she closes her eyes and prays silently.

_Please let this be all right. Please let us find a way to be together._

She opens her eyes. He’s in front of her now, studying the columns, and she wants to find a way right now to talk to him about the future, about their future, about marriage and children and what comes next for them. Maybe now is the right time, maybe it will get them past these bumps from the last few days. She is suddenly inspired by the place.

‘What if we got married here?’ she asks suddenly.

‘You poppin’ the question?’ he asks her, his voice joking, though there's an undercurrent of something darker there too.

‘What if I was?’ she asks, knowing that this is the conversation they have to have. God knows she doesn’t want to propose to him--she wants him to do that, she wants him to get down on one knee and produce a ring he picked out for her and tell her that he loves her and wants to be with her forever.

He turns to look at her, looking extremely uncomfortable. ‘I’m the one who’s supposed to do that.’

‘Then why haven't you?’ She’s never asked him this before. She has the sinking feeling, suddenly, that this will go wrong. She knows that this isn’t the right way to broach the subject, but she is upset and they need to talk about this and perhaps speaking like this, bluntly, will be better.

He scuffs his foot along the ground. ‘Why do we have to get married? We have a good thing goin’.’

She feels her heart stop for one two three seconds. Her entire body is still, waiting for him to laugh and say he’s kidding, to get down on one knee and ask her to marry him. He lifts his head and quirks one side of his mouth up in a humorless grin and her heart resumes and she can breathe and it feels as though she's just been kicked in the stomach.

‘We want children,’ she says, forcing herself to remain calm. ‘I thought we'd get married before we have children. But if you don't want to get married…’ she drops her gaze. ‘I can work around that. But I want children. That is important to me.’

He doesn't say anything. When she finally works up the nerve to look back up at him his gaze is fixed on the ground. It takes a long time for him to speak.

‘We’re going through a rough patch right now,’ he says slowly. ‘Not just… personally. But there's gonna be a lot of stress and overhaul with Staten Island… I don't think that kids are a good idea. Not right now. Not for a while.’

He stops talking and silence stretches between them.

‘Oh,’ she says at last, her voice as quiet as a whisper. She can't seem to speak at a normal volume. Oh, God, she thinks.

‘Doesn't have to change anything,’ he says softly. ‘We're good together.’

Yes, it does. It changes everything, she thinks. She covers her eyes with her hand. She wants to cry but she can’t. She can't do this, though, she knows that for certain. She can’t spent the rest of her life hoping he'll change his mind, knowing that nothing will change his mind. How could she do that? And she would spend her life loving him but knowing that part of her heart is empty, because they would never have children. She knows that “not right now” means never. She can see that in his eyes.

So now there is a choice to make. Being with him, or having children.

She says, ‘It feels like I have brain damage.’

‘What?’ he asks. She can hear the annoyance at her apparent non-sequitur in his voice.

‘The entirety of our life together--at least three years of it--was completely different from how I remember it and how I lived it.’

‘It wasn't different,’ he tells her, his voice gentler now. ‘It wasn't.’

She feels tears brimming; she can't cry, she thinks. She says, ‘I thought what we have... I thought you wanted to be with me always. That we were heading towards spending the rest of our lives together. That we were going to have children.’

‘I just--it's a bad idea for right now,’ he says, and she can hear an edge of desperation in his voice. ‘Just right now.’

‘Then when?’ she asks. ‘In one year, three years, five years?’

‘I don't know,’ he says. ‘Not now. When I get back to Manhattan.’

‘What if that doesn't happen right away? Then what?’

He shrugs, every movement so tense she's sure he'll break apart. ‘Then we re-evaluate in a couple years.’

‘A couple of years,’ she repeats, her voice wooden. She runs a hand over her eyes again. ‘Let's set that aside for a minute.’

‘Okay,’ he says, and she can hear the relief in his voice.

The silence between them is excruciating.

‘The commute will be long from uptown,’ she begins, choosing each word with extreme care. ‘If you don’t want to get married… well, we have been essentially living together. I think we should make it official and think about moving downtown. We could find a place together, maybe in the Village.’

‘With work… I'm not gonna be around for a while,’ he says at last. ‘While stuff gets figured out. I’ll get the shitty shifts. Maybe it's better if you keep your apartment while we try to figure things out.’

‘So you're putting our relationship on hold?’ she asks, suddenly breathless with pain, from every hope being cut out from her heart.

‘I don't know, Liz,’ he says, spreading his hands, looking at her, begging her to figure out what he cannot say. ‘We've gotta take a step back and figure things out. After what happened. Because... because the things that you want aren't things that can happen in the near future.’

‘The things that I want.’ She sounds out each word carefully. ‘So I am the only one who wants them?’

‘Liz,’ he says again, but it seems that her name is the only thing he can say.

‘It just--I just--this is unbelievable.’ She tries and rejects several beginnings. ‘Four years, Mike.’

‘Liz,’ he says yet again, but nothing after. He can't meet her eyes. His shoulders are hunched. His hands are stuffed in his pockets.

‘Do you love me?’ she blurts out. She doesn't blurt. She didn't want to ask that question. It cheapens what they have. What they've had. Because he loved her once. Also, never ask a question you don't know the answer to. Ben Stone told her that. And right now she doesn't know the answer, because he hasn’t said he loves her in weeks… she can’t remember the last time.

‘You know the answer to that,’ he says, not saying the words she needs to hear.

‘Say it,’ she tells him. ‘I need you to say it.’

He looks at her and she sees that she's hurt him. Well, he's hurt her, he's taken a knife and cut out her heart. This question, as much as she regrets it, as damaging as it is, is nothing, nothing, nothing compared to that.

He doesn't say a word. He tries, several times, but he cannot make a sound.

They stand in the middle of this magical island, in front of a church, and look at each other.

It feels like a bizarre game of Chutes and Ladders. One wrong answer and they're back at the bottom. One right answer and they barely advance.

But the problem is, neither of them have the right answers.

He looks away first.

Finally she says, ‘You take the moped back. I'll take a taxi later. I don't want you there when I come back.’

‘Lizzie--’

‘Please don't call me that,’ she says, and she's sure he can hear the badly suppressed tears in her voice. ‘I don’t know what else we can do.’

He steps towards her, stops, his hands outstretched, then drops them. ‘That's it?’ he asks. He is resigned to this. He does not fight it.

She nods, a tight, abrupt gesture, as though she's already trying to take it back. She is. She doesn't want this to be it.

He looks at her, a long look, as though he's memorizing every inch of her. He clears his throat. ‘We can go back together. At least walk back to town together.’

She shakes her head.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Uh--’ he pauses. ‘Take care of yourself, Liz.’

Don't cry, she tells herself, biting the inside of her cheek so hard she draws blood. The coppery taste filling her mouth reminds her of the time she was--the doctor's office, the table, helpless again.

She's so caught up in the past that she misses him turning away from her. By the time she looks up at him again he's almost out of sight.

She stands there for a long time, unable to think, unable to move, until the sound of thunder and the darkening of the sky prompt her to go back to St. George’s and find a taxi.


	17. Running

He doesn’t let himself think about what’s happened until he’s on the plane. He somehow manages to get back to the moped, drive back to Coral Beach, ask the front desk to change his ticket and call him a taxi, pack, and then get in the taxi and to the airport without thinking about it.

But now he’s on the plane and he can do nothing but think about it.

They broke up for real. It’s over.

He shouldn’t have said what he did to her. Saying he didn’t want to get married… he should have just told her what he thought, that it would be best for them to figure out their lives again now that they’re going to be so different. He should have said, yeah, let’s find a place together. He could have told her yes, he loves her, he’s in love with her. He knew, saying all those things, that she’d break up with him. How could she not?

Then he wouldn’t be on a plane by himself heading back to his empty apartment.

When they were in that church, before they started talking, he felt a shiver go down his back. Almost the entire day have been uncomfortable as hell and he took it out on her, but being there… he’s not superstitious, but it felt like someone strange was watching him, trying to tell him something.

He knows what it was now, obviously. Whatever was trying to speak to him was saying, _don’t fuck it up_.

Well, he has. And Christ, he was a real bastard to her this morning. She wanted to buy presents for his nieces and nephews and he made it sound like she wanted to… like ship them away to a military school or something. He made it sound like she didn’t care about them at all, when he knows that’s not the case.

This trip was supposed to be good, even if he arrived with the intention of breaking up with her at the end of it. Well, he’d changed his mind, but it obviously doesn’t matter any more. And anyway, did he really change his mind? He boxed her into it. He forced her hand.

He closes his eyes. She’s gonna have to tell her family. What is she gonna say? Knowing her, she won’t confide anything besides the fact that they aren’t together any more. At least his dad’s probably taken care of announcing to his family that they’ve split, so he won’t have to deal with that. But he’ll probably have to deal with her family tracking him down, looking for answers.

He can’t believe that he’s lost her. It feels worse than last time because this time she was telling him she couldn’t do this any more. But why did she have to say that? He wasn’t telling her they could never have kids. He just wanted to wait a couple years. She should have been patient.

But can he really blame her? Four years… and she was patient. She was very patient and she loved him and all of that was unrewarded. And the things he said… 

He just wants to get home and get really fucking drunk.

When he finally gets home, after taking the train from JFK to Penn, then the subway, he is exhausted and starving. He can’t believe that he was in Bermuda only a few hours ago.

He has nothing in the fridge, not even any booze, so he drops his stuff inside his apartment and heads out to the liquor store, then grabs a burger and fries to go from the diner. He brings everything back to the apartment, has his dinner, and gets completely legless, eventually passing out on the sofa surrounded by photographs of her and the ring sitting on the coffee table in front of him.

He wakes up hungover. That’s not a surprise, of course, considering how much booze he drank. He can’t keep doing this if he wants to avoid his parents’ relationship with alcohol. He drags himself to the bathroom and showers, then swallows a couple aspirin to help with the headache.

He dresses and heads to the grocery store. He’s gotta start cooking if he’s gonna make it through the next month without a paycheck. At least he’d put in a bunch of overtime right before the punch.

He is so fucking tired by the time he gets home. Yesterday seems like it lasted forever, and he definitely didn’t get a good night’s sleep thanks to the amount of alcohol he consumed. He decides, as he unpacks the groceries and pours himself a bowl of cereal, that he’ll go for a run around Carl Schurz.

The run helps get rid of the rest of his hangover. The problem is, it’s not helping him decide what to do next.

He knows that he should just call her or send her a telegram and say, ‘I’m sorry. I love you. Please forgive me. Please marry me.’ But he knows just as well that that’s not gonna work.

As much as he loves her--and he does, even if he couldn’t say it--it’s better in the end that they’re broken up. For her, anyway. And she’ll get over it. She’ll find someone else who will be able to accept her, all of her, just as she is, someone to give her an engagement ring and a big church wedding and children, as many as she wants. And she’ll find someone who will be around, too. Hell, maybe she’ll hook up with that guy she was kind of seeing when they got together--Jim, he thinks his name was. Yeah. That would be good for her. Jim was obviously crazy about her and he wouldn’t string her along for four years with nothing to give her at the end of it but a broken heart.

Even if this didn’t happen, can he really see them getting married? He can’t even picture their wedding. She’d want a church wedding. He can’t do that. And could he really put up with spending all their holidays with her family? And kids… first of all, he’s not gonna be around now, but even when he was… they could grow up snobby and look down on him and his family, because they don’t come from the same kind of background. He can’t really picture himself as a dad to kids like that.

He can picture her as a mom, thought--that’s really easy. She’s great with kids and if he concentrates, he can imagine her with their child in her arms, a newborn, and the look on her face… 

‘Mike!’ someone says, a vaguely familiar voice, and he looks up to see Sherri. Fuck, he thinks, but then he realizes he doesn’t have to worry any more. He and Liz are through. She’s wearing running clothes and has obviously been running for a while. ‘Didn’t expect to see you here.’

‘Yeah,’ he says, taking in the way she looks on autopilot. Her shirt is clinging to her attractively, and he shakes his head to get a grip on himself. ‘I live nearby.’

‘Me, too. I moved recently.’ She meets his gaze. ‘Listen, I was sorry to hear about Staten Island.’

‘Yeah, thanks,’ he replies. ‘It sucks, but… I guess it is what it is.’

‘Yeah,’ she agrees. There’s an awkward silence for a minute.

He asks, surprising himself, ‘You free for dinner tonight?’

She smiles at him. ‘I am. My parents wanted me to come over for the Fourth but I declined.’

‘You know, I completely forgot it was the Fourth of July today,’ he says, rubbing his eyes.

‘Do you have other plans?’ she asks him. ‘We can reschedule.’

‘No,’ he says firmly. ‘I don’t.’

Her smile is wide. ‘Great. Why don’t I cook? I’m across the street from the park and we can see the fireworks from my windows.’

‘Sounds perfect,’ he says, and grins back at her. It feels good to flirt, to put yesterday behind him. ‘Can I bring anything?’

‘A bottle of wine would be great,’ she suggests. ‘I’m at 130 East End, Apartment 6F. Want to come over at 7?’

‘Perfect,’ he says again. ‘I’ll see you then.’

‘See you then,’ she agrees.

He watches as she continues her run. She does have a good figure, and she’s fun to be with. He’s looking forward to tonight. At least he won’t be alone in his apartment, thinking about Liz.

He decides to bring her the bottle of champagne he was saving for Liz and takes his time getting ready, showering, shaving, and putting on some of the nice cologne Liz bought him for Christmas. He’s gonna toss that after this, he decides, but he left the cologne he likes at her place, so this is all he’s got right now. But as soon as he puts it on the scent turns his stomach, reminding him of her and what he did. He takes another shower and just uses his aftershave.

He walks over to her place a little bit before seven and she buzzes him up right away.

She looks good, he thinks, when she opens the door. She’s wearing a bright blue dress, clinging to her in all the right places. He should have brought flowers, he thinks. He settles for grinning at her and saying, ‘You look gorgeous.’

‘Thank you,’ she says with a smile. ‘You’re not looking so bad yourself. Come on in.’

The evening is very, very relaxing. It’s a relief to just be without tiptoeing around years of baggage from a relationship. Sherri seems like a normal person. Her apartment isn’t decorated within an inch of its life like Liz’s. He always thought it was like stepping into a magazine, even though it was well lived in.

Sherri’s a decent cook, but more on his level. Her roast chicken and potatoes with a salad is something he can do, not like the elaborate sauces that Liz whipped up. STOP THINKING ABOUT HER! he orders himself.

Conversation is easy. Sherri grew up in Texas and moved here to go to NYU. Her parents followed when her dad transferred. She explains that he’s a legal advisor to a couple financial organizations, while her mother is a teacher. He glosses over his family life, saying briefly that his dad is a cop and his mother died about a decade ago. 

When she suggests that they’ll get a better view of the fireworks from her bedroom, he doesn’t hesitate to accept.


	18. Trauma

By the time she gets to St. George’s the sky has opened and she’s soaking. She finds her way back to the pub where they had lunch and asks to use their phone to call a cab. While she’s waiting, she has a cup of coffee. She hopes the beverage will help warm her up, but she can’t stop shivering.

She knows that there was nothing else she could have done. She would give up a lot for him but in the end she couldn’t give up the thought, the hope, of having children. And he wouldn’t give her anything in return.

When the taxi arrives she rides back in silence and heads straight for their cottage, bypassing the lobby of the club. The cottage looks as though he was never there. The bed was made by the housekeeper, the things they had scattered around are all tidied and none of them belong to him. Her clothes have been moved from one side of the closet to the middle, and she doesn’t bother to open the drawers; she knows he’s taken everything.

She gets out of her wet clothes, hangs them to dry, and takes a long, hot bath. Water has always been able to soothe the jagged edges of her emotions and it works now, too, though she knows that when she gets out of the bath she’ll have to deal with what’s happened.

She does, at last, when the water’s grown cold. She wraps herself in one of the fluffy terrycloth robes and makes her way to the living room, where she curls up on the sofa.

She still feels like she’s been kicked in the stomach. She is in physical pain, and quite a lot of it. She can’t believe what happened.

How could he say what he did? That he didn’t want to get married, he didn’t want children, he didn’t even want to live with her. After all this time… did he really feel like that always? Or only after he slept with someone else?

And their argument… God, who cares who her great-grandfather was? And it’s not as though she’s living off of this money, anyway. He had nine children and by the time he died something like twenty grandchildren and there are only more now. Whatever money her grandmother had from him, or her father has now, must be minute. Most of the money her parents have is from the bank or her mother’s family.

And besides--she works hard for what she has. She sees patients. She works for the DA’s office and the 2-7. She works hard. She can spend the money she has how she likes, and buying presents for his nieces and nephews… that’s hardly a crime. It’s a nice thing to do.

She doesn’t know what to do next. He obviously doesn’t want to be with her. He left, not once but twice.

She wants to marry him still. She wants to have his children still. But that won’t happen now. He doesn’t want children. He doesn’t want to marry her.

So she’ll have to try to find someone else to love. But how can she? How the hell could she ever give her heart to someone else? What she feels for him--it’s all-encompassing, all-consuming, but most of all it belongs to him. How could she alter that simple fact?

Obviously it would be different if she had a child. The love is there for them, waiting for them, her child, her son or daughter who is yet to be born. But romantic love… that belongs to him.

How will she be able to have children now? She wants a child with him, not with anyone else. She can’t imagine being romantically involved with anyone again, not now…

She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes in a futile attempt to stop herself from dissolving into tears. She loves him. God, she loves him. But she cannot go on like that. If he doesn’t want what she wants--a commitment to each other--then she was right to tell him to go. She knows that.

It’s hard to accept that.

It felt as though he was trying to find a way out of their relationship, now that she’s thinking back on his words. Why else would he just latch on to something so meaningless?

He knows her family has money. Her father owns a bank, for God’s sake, and he knows that her great-grandfather--the other one--founded it. He’s listened to her mother talk endlessly about her family. There’s obviously no reason why he felt so strongly about one particular relative.

She’s related to two signers of the Declaration of Independence, former senators, judges, including one former Supreme Court justice, and three Vice Presidents. But why does that matter? Does he really want her to sit down and trace her entire genealogy so he can decide if it’s acceptable to him or not? She doesn’t care who she is related to. It doesn’t matter. And it’s never mattered to him before.

Does he really care about her so little? When did he stop loving her? But if he did stop loving her before all this happened, why did he come with her to Bermuda? And if he stopped while he was here… why? What did she do?

Or was the thought of marrying her, of having children with her, so distasteful that he couldn’t do it?

She closes her eyes. She’ll never have the answers to her questions. She will never know. And now she will spend the rest of her life wondering, and doubting the good parts of their relationship. She trusted him and she was betrayed, so how, in the future, could she find someone else to love? Who else could there be? Not Luc, her first love. Not Mike, obviously. Jim is engaged, and she never loved him romantically anyway.

She rests her forehead against her knees. She feels awful--achy and ill and she just wants to sleep. It’s still raining. She and Mike were supposed to have dinner tonight at the beachfront restaurant at neighboring Elbow Beach, but she’d have to cancel in any case now, even if they were still together. She sobs once, involuntarily, and presses the back of her hand to her mouth to stop herself from crying any more.

 _Enough for now_ , she says to herself, more gently than she would usually. _Why don’t you go and get dressed and order something really elaborate and delicious for dinner. Show yourself some kindness._

If it wasn’t thunderstorming, she’d go for a swim. She feels better in the water. But she’ll take another bath later, light the candle she bought today, and read a book. She can still enjoy herself here. She can just take some time and heal, as she intended when she got on the plane. She hasn’t spent time alone with herself in a long, long time. Her life has been full; full of him, but now that he’s not here… she’ll have to find a way to be by herself again, and she might as well start now.

She orders a nice meal. It’s still storming, so she eats indoors, but she keeps the windows open. The scent of fresh rain is wonderful. She wonders if he was able to get a flight back to New York, then abruptly curtails that train of thought.

Despite everything that happened, it is a pleasant evening on her own, as long as she can continue to set aside the pain she feels. She ordered a bottle of wine and is enjoying the Sancerre. The food, too, is delicious. After she finishes eating, she curls up on the sofa and reads a book. When she is tired, she pours herself a second glass of wine and takes another long, luxurious bath. When she feels that she can finally sleep, she gets out of the bath, puts on a nightgown, and goes to bed.

‘Why would you ever think I would want to have kids with you?’ he asks her. ‘Christ, Liz, we have nothin’ in common besides sex and work, neither of which are conducive to children. Whatever kids you have are gonna be spoiled brats and they’re not gonna have anything to do with me.’

‘That’s not fair,’ she tries to say, but she can’t seem to speak. She tries again. ‘That’s not true. We’ll have wonderful children.’

His gaze is cold. ‘Can’t even defend yourself, huh? I guess you know the truth when you hear it.’

‘It’s not the truth!’ she tries to tell him, but there’s still no sound.

‘You know what? You’re good in bed but I really liked Sherri better. There weren’t all these issues that come with datin’ you. You need a whole team of servants to carry your baggage. Good thing you’ve got all that money to pay for them.’ He leans back and gives her a self-satisfied leer. ‘Well, we could have one last fuck, for old time’s sake.’

She shoots bolt upright, her heart pounding. The room is dark, though she can hear the birds beginning to sing outside. She runs a hand through her hair and looks over at the clock on her nightstand; it’s 5:30 in the morning. She takes a deep, shaky breath.

‘Okay,’ she says out loud. ‘It’s too early to swim, though at least it’s not raining any more. Why don’t you go make some tea and then sit outside and watch the sun rise?’

She does as she suggests to herself, putting on a sweater and shorts before making tea and going outside. It is another beautiful sunrise and the start to another beautiful day, but she feels miserable and her heart aches still. What is she supposed to do? How the hell is she supposed to move on and find someone else to marry and have children with?

Maybe she should just be a single mother. She could ask Nicky to supply the… genetic material. Maybe that would be for the best. Because she has no idea how she would be able to trust someone enough to have a child with them, other than Nicky. He’s never let her down, and he would be a great father, a wonderful one. And at least with Nicky there wouldn’t be the disagreements over raising a child that would inevitably occur with Mike. Nicky wouldn’t mind sending their child to Chapin or St. Bernard’s, then Farmington or Deerfield. It would be expected.

But she knows that that would only be a consolation prize. Not that their child would be a consolation prize, nor be as loved--of course they would be, because first and foremost her child would be hers, and they will be just as loved as any child with Mike. But having a child without Mike… she wants children with Mike, wants to be married to Mike, wants him to love her and be there for her and cherish her and want her…

It will never happen.

She closes her eyes. She will give herself a year, she thinks. After a traumatic event, you aren’t meant to make big decisions until a year has passed, and she thinks that this qualifies. One year, and if nothing changes she’ll talk to Nicky.


	19. The Bridges of Madison County

He wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, but he realizes where he is after a few seconds of confusion. Sherri’s apartment. She’s not in bed next to him, but he can hear her moving around in the other room and he smells the tempting scent of bacon. He stares at the ceiling for a minute.

Even if it wasn’t over before--which it was--it’s definitely over now. This would be something she could never forgive.

Does it matter any more? Now that he’s thought about it, he can’t picture ever making a real commitment to her. Marriage, kids, hell, even moving in together, knowing that he was living in her place, not theirs, bought with her money, filled with her things… it wouldn’t work. There is no way that would work, especially when the most he has to offer her was an engagement ring that is nothing compared to any of the jewelry she owns.

He gets out of bed, putting on his boxers, and heads into the kitchen. She doesn’t notice him at first, so he takes a minute to appreciate how good she looks in just a tshirt, standing at the stove. Now, with Sherri--not that he’s planning on getting married to her, but they’re more alike than he and Liz.

She turns and sees him, then smiles. ‘Good morning.’

He grins back at her, coming over to give her a kiss. ‘Good morning.’

‘I hope you like bacon,’ she says, turning back to the stove. ‘And scrambled eggs. I’m afraid my cooking repertoire is limited.’

‘You’re a great cook,’ he assures her. ‘What can I do to help?’

‘Can you set the table?’ she asks, and indicates where things can be found. He does so and a few minutes later she joins him with breakfast.

To his surprise, the conversation is easy, like it was last night. She’s interesting to talk to and, more importantly, they have the same references, something he didn’t really have with Liz.

He does the dishes after they finish eating and when he’s done, he suggests they go see a movie that afternoon. She agrees with a smile and when he goes, the kiss she gives him is deep and passionate. He heads back home with a spring in his step.

When he unlocks the door, however, he’s greeted with the remains of the breakup, and his heart sinks. He can’t deal with it, not even to put the stuff away, so he gets dressed quickly and heads out, anywhere, to kill time before he meets Sherri.

He gets to the movie theater early. She wants to see The Bridges of Madison County, which she promised has Clint Eastwood in it. Looking at the poster though, it looks like a romantic movie, which is the last thing he wants right now. But it’s too late to suggest a change, because she appears, brandishing tickets.

‘I called ahead just in case they were sold out,’ she explains. ‘Do you want popcorn?’

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I’ll get it, if you wanna get seats.’

‘Great,’ she agrees, and slips off.

He stands in line and gets the popcorn and some drinks, plus a box of nonpareils. As he carries the snacks off, he realizes that he bought the candy automatically, because it’s Liz’s favorite. He doesn’t like these, and even if he did, he’s pretty sure he’d choke on them. He hopes Sherri does. Shit.

She does like them, thank Christ. ‘How did you know?’ she exclaims. ‘They’re my favorite.’

‘Lucky guess,’ he says, sitting down next to her. She takes his hand, but then he puts his arm around her instead, allowing him to get some popcorn.

He zones out during the movie. He doesn’t want to watch something so romantic. Sherri obviously enjoys it, and is touched by it, because at points she cries.

When the lights go up, she turns to him and smiles. ‘Wasn’t that a beautiful film?’

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘It was great.’ He bends to kiss her, which she returns, but when he pulls back he looks up and sees Liz’s friend Nick, and he’s looking straight at them.

‘What the fuck, Mike?’ Nick exclaims.

He doesn’t look down at Sherri, but he can feel her confusion. He doesn’t know what to do. Should he ignore him? Should he just laugh it off?

Nick makes up his mind for him and strides over to them. ‘What the actual fuck? You’re cheating on Liz?’

‘No one’s cheatin’ on anyone,’ he snaps. ‘We’ve been broken up for a while now, okay? So please just let us enjoy our afternoon.’

Nick gapes at him. ‘You broke up? Why?’

He shakes his head. ‘None of your business.’

Nick is flabbergasted. ‘Where is she? When did this happen?’

‘Look, you want answers, go talk to her, okay? We’re done.’ He looks down at Sherri; to her credit, she looks calm and collected. ‘Let’s go,’ he suggests, and she nods, taking his hand. They leave Nick gaping behind them.

When they get a couple blocks away from the theater, Sherri asks, ‘So what was that all about?’

He’s been trying to think of a way to explain it. ‘I dated a friend of his for a few years,’ he says, having decided to tell her as much of the truth as possible. ‘We broke up. She wanted to get married but I thought we weren’t headin’ that way. I guess she didn’t tell anyone yet.’

‘So that’s who you were with that time we were together,’ she says. Her voice is not judgemental. ‘Did you tell her?’

‘Yeah, I did,’ he admits. ‘I told her pretty recently, though, even though it’s been over for a while. She was… upset.’

‘You’re not seeing anyone else, are you? I like you, Mike, but not enough to help you cheat on someone again, or be a rebound.’ She’s stopped and is looking up at him. He looks back at her and wills himself to project as much sincerity as possible.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m not seein’ anyone else.’

Suddenly she smiles. ‘Good. Now, I’m starving. I have work tomorrow, early, but do you want to grab a late lunch?’

He takes her hand. ‘Yeah, I do.’


	20. Support

The phone in the cottage rings and she steps back inside from her solitary afternoon tea to answer it. ‘Hello?’

‘Yes, Ms. Olivet?’ the manager’s voice says. ‘This is Peter Featherstone. I was asked to inform you that your friend, Mr. Smith, will be arriving on the five-fifty plane. He’s arranged for a car, but asks that you wait for him to join you before you have dinner.’

 _Nicky_ , she thinks. _He must know. Mike must have told him_. ‘Thank you, Mr. Featherstone. Would you be kind enough to reserve us a table for dinner tonight, please?’

‘Of course,’ he says. ‘Is seven-thirty all right?’

‘Perfect, thank you,’ she says.

‘Have a good afternoon, Ms. Olivet.’

‘You as well,’ she says, and hangs up. She looks at the clock. It’s five o’clock now, so he will be landing shortly, and will be here by six fifteen, she hopes.

 _Did_ Mike tell him? If so, why? It’s the only way Nicky could have possibly known, and while she wanted this time to herself she is suddenly, completely grateful that her best friend will be joining her. She can talk to him. She needs to talk to him.

She is a self-sufficient person. She is a private person, too, and rarely confides her deepest thoughts and feelings to anyone. She never has, really, except to Mike and to Nicky, and on occasion her mother. But she needs to talk now, because she feels so lost, and maybe talking will help staunch the wound.

And she needs his help to figure out what to tell her parents and the rest of her family and friends. She had confided in her mother a month or so ago now that she hoped he’d propose when they were here. How is she going to tell her parents--and not just her parents, but everyone else--that they broke up because he didn’t want to get married or have children or even live with her?

No, she thinks. She can’t tell them the reason. Not just because it’s private, not just because it hurts her, but because it’s embarrassing, too. She was so naive, so stupid, to think that after all the years that they were together a ring would still be forthcoming. He wasn’t shy. If he’d wanted to marry her, he would have proposed a long time ago. He just didn’t want to marry her.

Thinking about what he said--using work as an excuse to force her to end their relationship--that doesn’t explain why he hadn’t proposed earlier. Why they hadn’t had children earlier. So the obvious explanation is that he didn’t want to have children with her. That he didn’t love her enough to want to be with her or marry her or live with her…

What was it about her that wasn’t enough for him? She was ready to commit to him. She had been for so long. And now…?

Even if he came back to her and apologized and begged for her forgiveness and told her that he made a mistake, she couldn’t take him back. He’s broken the trust between them and she can’t imagine how they can get that back. Well, she thinks bitterly, she’ll never know, because she’ll never need to find out. He’s not coming back.

She shakes her head sharply to stop thinking about this. She has to get ready for Nicky. She can’t let him see her like this. She’ll also need to air out the second bedroom for him. She needs to get dressed and wash her face. Nicky will probably want to unpack and have a shower after he arrives, so she will at least have time to get dressed for dinner. Looking at the clock, seeing that it’s now a quarter to six, she realizes she doesn’t have time. She’s been dwelling on this too long.

She gets dressed first, then washes her face, then goes up to what will be Nicky’s room to open the windows. Everything is all set in this room--the bed is made, there are fresh towels, and everything is clean. She goes downstairs to wait for him.

She doesn’t wait long. A few minutes after she goes downstairs there is a knock on the front door, which she hurries to open. Nicky is standing there, and one of the staff leaves his bags net to him and nods to them both. She steps back to let him inside and he closes the door.

‘Hi, Nicky,’ she says.

‘Lilibet,’ he says, and opens his arms to embrace her.

They stroll companionably over to the clubhouse. They haven’t talked yet; nothing needed to be said right away. They’ll talk after dinner. She’s just so glad he’s here.

They reach the clubhouse and he opens the door for her, resting his hand on her back and guiding her to the bar. They order drinks and take them out to the porch, finding seats.

‘Cheers,’ Nicky says, and she touches her glass to his.

‘Cheers,’ she echoes, and takes a sip.

‘I’m glad you aren’t upset that I’m here,’ he says. ‘I didn’t want you to be told I was arriving until I was on the plane, because I knew that your good manners would never turn me away once I got here.’

She chuckles, which surprises her, but then he’s always been able to lighten her mood. ‘Well, that’s true, but I am happy to see you.’

‘Good,’ he says. ‘Well, I’ve taken the rest of the week off, so we can have a nice little holiday together, hmm? Does that sound all right to you?’

‘Yes, it does,’ she replies, relieved. While she thought she needed some time alone, being here, where she and Mike were happy, has been difficult to manage. ‘I’m very glad that you are here. We’ve had good times together here, haven’t we?’

‘Yes,’ he says, reaching over to squeeze her knee. ‘And we’ll have a good time now, too, darling, no matter--’

She puts her hand on his to stop him from continuing. ‘We’ll talk about it later.’

‘All right,’ he agrees. ‘It’s a beautiful night.’

‘Yes, it is.’ She takes a sip of her cocktail and they sit in silence for a little while.

‘Do you just want to relax on the beach or go out and do things tomorrow?’ he asks.

‘Let’s decide in the morning.’

‘All right,’ he agrees. ‘Are you ready for dinner?’

She sets down her empty glass. ‘I’m ready.’

Nicky keeps up a running stream of gossip throughout their delicious dinner, making her laugh and keeping her mind off of why he’s here. She hasn’t seen many of her friends for some time, busy with work and with other things… so it’s nice to catch up on all the news. Nicky spent the Fourth of July yesterday with Sally and her new beau on the North Shore, and had headed back to the city this morning.

Finally, they can’t put off the conversation they need to have any longer. They sign the chit and have their desserts and a bottle of wine brought back to the cottage. They both change out of their formal outfits and into something more comfortable before retiring to the patio.

Nicky opens the wine and pours them each a glass. The desserts--a chocolate mousse and a Key lime tart--are in the fridge. Finally she is ready to talk.

‘How did you find out what happened?’ she asks him. ‘Did Mike tell you and ask you to come see me?’ She is hopeful that that is the case, though she is frustrated with herself for apparently holding onto this one last hope. _Don’t be absurd, Elizabeth_ , she tells herself sharply. _You’re better off without him, if he’s become the person that he apparently is now. What does it matter if he asked Nicky to come see you?_

‘I ran into him on the street and I asked where you were. He said you guys broke up a while back, so I went to your apartment, and after persuading your doorman that I needed to speak with you, he told me you were here.’ He looks at her. ‘You could have told me, Lilibet.’

‘What?’ she asks, unable to put his words together. ‘He said we’d broken up a while ago?’

Nicky nods. ‘I guess that’s why no one’s seen you for a while… you could have told me, though, Lilibet. I would’ve been there.’

She doesn’t know what to say. She takes a sip of wine and tries to think. There’s obviously a reason why he told Nicky that they broke up a while ago. Was he with someone else? No, she tells herself. Not even he would act like that, not even after what’s happened. He would not do that.

‘Lilibet?’ Nicky asks, and she turns to look at him. ‘What happened? When did it happen?’

‘Last week,’ she begins at last, thinking, _how could this only have happened last week?_ ‘Last week, we went into the precinct and the ADA who was working on this case, Sherri West… he’d slept with her while we were together. After I was raped. And she didn’t know we were together… she asked him to call her, to see if he still lived up to his reputation.’ She closes her eyes. ‘So I made some excuse and went home and then he came back eventually, and said it had happened, that it didn’t mean anything. He didn’t apologize. And then I asked him to go back to his apartment because I needed some space to think about it, and he packed up all of his things and left.’

‘God, Lilibet--’

‘That’s not all,’ she says involuntarily. _Keep this to yourself!_ part of her cries silently. _It’s private. Don’t share it._ ‘After he punched that councilman, I called him, I suggested he come here with me. And--he did. He came to the airport and got on the plane and I thought that that meant that he wanted to fix our relationship, that he wanted to be together. But--two days ago, we went to St. George’s and walked around the Unfinished Church, and we’d been arguing earlier in the day, but I suggested we get married.’ _Shut up!_ she screams inwardly. _Stop it. This is for you, only._ But she can’t stop now, the words spill out of her. ‘I suggested we get married there. And then he told me he didn’t want to get married, and I said, all right, but I want children whether we get married or not, and he said he didn’t want children in the near future, that it would be “too difficult” with work.’ Her voice is bitter. ‘And then I said, we’ll discuss that later, but we should move in together officially, find a place together, maybe downtown so his new commute to Staten Island would be shorter. And he said he couldn’t do that, either. So I asked him if he loved me.’ Her voice catches on a sob and she contemplates lying, telling Nicky that he said that he did love her, he just wasn’t cut out for this, or something--but she knows he’ll know she’s lying. ‘And he didn’t answer. So I told him to go, and he left.’

Nicky is silent for a long time, taking it in. She’s proud that, despite one brief moment of uncertainty, she didn’t cry. He finally says, with unaccustomed force, ‘He’s a bastard and you’re better off without him.’

‘I didn’t think he was like that,’ she admits quietly. ‘I thought--’ she trails off. ‘I don’t know what I thought.’

‘You thought he was a good person,’ he says, his voice tight with anger. ‘You trusted him. God, what an… what an absolutely, absolutely awful thing to have done.’

‘It’s my fault,’ she says. ‘Breaking up with him because he didn’t want to get married, or… well, I should have asked him what he wanted. We should have discussed this a long time ago. So I am at least partially to blame.’

‘No, you’re not,’ he says. ‘It’s expected. If he didn’t want to get married, he should have made that clear. And cheating on you… that’s unforgivable.’

‘Yes,’ she admits softly. ‘It is.’

They are silent for a long time. She’s lost in her thoughts. She was ready to forgive him, but this… she could not forgive this.

She tells herself that it will be all right. She knows that it will, one day. She doesn’t need him. She loves him, and he made her happy, but she’s never needed him to survive, she supposes. She’ll survive. She’s fine on her own and she will get through this, even though it will take time.

‘We’ll find you someone else, darling,’ Nicky says at last. ‘Someone not so… NOCD.’

‘I don’t want anyone else,’ she tells him, ignoring his pointed jab at Mike’s background. ‘I don’t just want to date and hope to fall in love with someone. I’m fine on my own. I’d rather be on my own than trapped in a marriage that doesn’t make me happy.’

He smiles at her. ‘That’s the spirit. Well, at least we’ll be able to see more of you now.’

‘Yes,’ she agrees, realizing that it’s the truth. While she hasn’t fallen out of touch with her group of friends, she certainly sees them all much less frequently than she would like, thanks to her work schedule, Mike’s work schedule, and trying to find time to see each other.

‘You can finally find time to come out with me to Sally’s new place one weekend,’ Nicky continues. ‘It will be great. She’s got a great place on Centre Island, you know--you saw the pictures. Right on the water and a quick drive to Seawanhaka.’

‘Good,’ she says. ‘Yes. One weekend before the end of the summer.’

She and Mike have been invited out several times, but each time they were forced to decline, either because of Mike’s schedule or because they preferred to stay at home. But now she’s realizing how… confined their life was. Not that she resented it at the time--she loved being alone with him, in bed with him, but--but they rarely spent more than two evenings a month with other people as a couple, not counting family members, and while she made time to see her friends and family, it wasn’t as much as she would have liked. Not that she noticed at the time--Audrey and Charlie and Jane and her husband have children now, so they are busy with that, and Nicky travels a lot for work, and Sally and Cynthia have been busy too. But there have been weekends when she’s wanted to be with them, too, and that hasn’t happened. So that, at least, is a positive change. She should make a list.

But not now. She is exhausted.

She yawns. ‘If you don’t mind, Nicky, I need to go to bed.’

‘Of course I don’t mind,’ he says. ‘Do you want your dessert?’

‘I’ll take it with me to my room,’ she says. ‘Thank you for coming.’

He stands to embrace her. ‘I’m always here if you need me. I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

‘I’ll see you in the morning. Breakfast at nine, right?’

She nods. ‘Good night.’

She collects her chocolate mousse from the fridge and goes to her room, sitting in the windowseat to enjoy her dessert before she changes and goes to bed.


	21. Confrontation

He’s rattled after seeing Liz’s friend. He isn’t good company, he knows, but luckily Sherri doesn’t seem to mind. He walks her back to her apartment and they make plans to see each other on Friday.

When he gets home he makes himself dinner--nothing fancy, just a sandwich--and opens a beer and turns on the game. But as the evening progresses he feels hemmed in by all the pictures of them and the stuff from her place and the engagement ring sitting on the coffee table, so he turns to scotch.

He wakes up to the sound of his buzzer. ‘Mike? It’s Miranda,’ comes Liz’s godmother’s familiar voice. He groans inwardly. It’s already begun. Did she call her family from Bermuda, or did Nick? He thought she’d at least wait until she got home. He thought Nick would at least wait until he talked to Liz.

He stands up and buzzes her in, his head aching. He leaves the front door open a bit so she can get in, and all too soon he hears her footsteps, then sees the door open.

‘Is everything all right?’ she asks, her voice stunned. ‘What happened?’

‘We broke up,’ he tells her.

‘Why? She loves you, you know,’ she says, her voice gentle.

‘It’s over,’ he replies, not wanting to go into it. ‘She told me it was over. My fault. I broke her heart. Didn’t expect anything else.’

‘She loves you. Whatever happened… she’ll forgive you, Mike. She just needs a little time.’

He shakes his head and pours himself another drink, taking a deep swig.

‘For God’s sake, stop!’ she tells him. ‘Mike, you were going to propose to her. You bought a ring. How did you go from that to… this?’

He meet her eyes for the first time. ‘She told me to go, Miranda. She never says things she doesn’t mean. She told me it was over. So… it’s over.’ He hands her the black velvet ring box. ‘D’you want to see it? After we got back on track… took me over two years to save up to buy it.’

She leans forward and takes the box from his hand, opening it.

‘Best I could afford, even after two years,’ he tells her, looking down into his glass. ‘She deserved better. She was always too good for me, I knew that.’

She closes the box. ‘She didn’t believe that, Mike, and neither do I. You two are the perfect pair.’

‘Were,’ he said. ‘It’s over. I fucked someone else, okay, Miranda? After Liz was raped. And Liz just found out. Was a mistake but it doesn’t matter now. Now go away.’

He feels her watching him for a long time, but she leaves eventually, letting the door slam behind her. He picks up the bottle again.

When he eventually sobers up in the late afternoon, he finally unpacks his stuff. Anything Liz gave him--suits, sweaters, shirts--go in the way back of his closet. He tosses the cologne. Pictures of her go in a shoebox. Letters from her go in another shoebox. He goes through all of his belongings and anything she’s given him--cufflinks, his watch, books--go in another box. He finds the tape they made last summer and puts that away too. It takes hours, but once it’s packed away he feels much better. He makes himself a sandwich for dinner and goes to bed.

The day they’re supposed to get back from Bermuda--the day she, presumably, is still returning--is raining and chilly, especially for July. He has the sinking feeling in his gut that she’s gonna show up on his doorstep and… what? Scream at him, cry, beg him to reconsider? She would do none of those things. That’s not who she is.

He figures that she’s gonna call her friend Nick and tell him what happened and he’ll tell her what he saw. And then… well, she and Sherri work together sometimes. Is Sherri gonna talk to her about how they’re dating? He doesn’t think that Liz will ask Sherri about what happened, but he’s scared that she will. He’s terrified that she will.

He spends the entire day dreading the inevitable phone call from someone related to her--either her parents, or Peter and Miranda, or one of her cousins. It doesn’t come by the time he meets Sherri at her place for dinner. He hopes it never does.

It’s getting serious pretty fast with Sherri. He doesn’t know how he feels about that. But he likes spending time with her and being with her is better than being on his own. At least she hasn’t started making noises about meeting her parents, and better, she’s interested in him and interesting and she likes being with him. He likes being with her too.

He’s getting bored being home all day. He’s been working out, and running, and playing basketball, but it gives him too much time to think, so by the end of the day, when he can get out and see Sherri, it’s easy to just stop thinking and be with her. And when he wakes up from an inevitable nightmare, it’s nice to wrap his arms around her and let her presence soothe him.

Yesterday was the worst nightmare yet, but he can’t quite remember it. He just knows that he shot bolt upright in bed and couldn’t get back to sleep.

Tonight, he and Sherri go out to dinner. She tells him about the case she’s prosecuting and asks his opinion on the motivations of the criminal. This is something he and Liz never really did--she usually knew without having to discuss it, after interviewing these people. This feels good to work together on something and he’s glad to be diving back into the work that he hasn’t been able to do for the past couple weeks.

By the time they get home he wants her very badly, and as soon as they lock the door behind them he brings her to the bedroom.


	22. Dinner

She can’t stop fidgeting on the plane ride home. Nicky is next to her, reading, and while from time to time he puts his hand on hers, she still is so anxious. She doesn’t know how she can tell her parents what happened.

They’ve come up with her plan of attack. Her parents are meeting her for dinner tonight, which is a plan of long standing. She’d thought, however, that she would have happy news for them.

They’re meeting tonight at Le Charlot, which is the restaurant where they first had dinner with Mike. If she could change it now she would, but changing the restaurant would involve calling her parents to tell them about the new plan and she just can’t fathom speaking to them on the phone. They’d know something was wrong.

She’ll tell her parents part of the truth, but not the entire truth. She doesn’t want to tell them that he cheated on her. So she will tell them part of the truth, that they discussed their future and he did not want to get married, so they ended their relationship.

What will they think? They welcomed him into their lives after a rocky beginning. They treated him as a member of the family. They cared about him. And now… 

She just doesn’t know how she can get the words out.

She gets back to her apartment at a quarter to five. Nicky offers to stay but she needs some time alone, which he accepts.

‘I’ll call you tomorrow, then, darling,’ he says. ‘But I’m here if you need anything before that.’

‘Thank you,’ she replies, and kisses his cheek before heading up to her apartment.

Thanks to her wonderful housekeeper, her apartment is aired and everything is tidy. There are fresh flowers in the hall and in her bedroom. The bed is made up with clean sheets. She sets her bags down, unpacks, puts some clothes in the hamper, and puts the others in the bag for dry cleaning. Finally she goes into her bathroom and draws a very hot bath, pouring in some of the bath salts she likes to help her relax. As the bath runs, she goes into the kitchen and opens a bottle of Sancerre, bringing a glass back with her.

She relaxes, feeling the tension ebb out of her body. She won’t think about dinner tonight, though she can’t lounge about in the bathtub all evening. She thinks about her weekend plans. She promised Nicky that they would go out to Sally’s new place on Centre Island this weekend and she intends to stick to her plans. It will be good. They’ll take the train out together on Friday evening, the 6:16, Sally and her new beau, and Nicky, and herself. They’ll go out to Sally’s house. There may be other guests, Sally told them on the phone, but it will be fun, and they’ll be able to catch up.

It will be fun, she thinks. They’ll be able to sail, and swim, play tennis, have lunch at the club… she’s glad that she and Nicky played tennis twice a day now, because she’d been out of practice. So that will be good. In short, they’ll be able to have a weekend that Mike would not approve of, and it’s a weekend that she will enjoy.

The bathwater has grown cold and her wineglass is empty, so she climbs reluctantly out. She needs to get ready for dinner.

She walks to the restaurant. It’s only about a ten minute walk, and she’s wearing sandals instead of heels as well as a comfortable linen dress. She pauses before opening the door to the restaurant--she can see her parents sitting at their preferred table with a bottle of champagne chilling next to them. So they too think that she has good news for them.

She pushes open the door. Her parents see her right away and they both stand, smiling, as she reaches them.

‘Hello, darling,’ her mother says warmly, embracing her. 

‘Hi, Mummy,’ she says, taking a deep breath. ‘Hi, Daddy.’

Her father kisses her cheek. ‘Hello, sweetheart. You look lovely.’

‘Thank you,’ she says. They take their seats and she busies herself with putting her napkin on her lap.

‘When will Mike be here?’ her mother asks. 

_That didn’t take long_ , she thinks, and fixes her gaze on the table in front of her. ‘He won’t be joining us tonight.’

‘Is everything all right?’ her father asks. ‘We were so sorry to hear about Staten Island. The Commissioner is out of town, but Peter is going to speak to him when he returns.’

‘We broke up,’ she says, and glances up to see her parents gaping at her.

The waiter comes to ask if they’re ready to open the champagne.

‘I think we’d prefer a rosé, actually,’ her mother says, recovering first. ‘The Pascal Jolivet.’

‘Very good,’ the waiter says, bowing slightly before whisking the champagne away.

She drops her gaze again as she sees her parents’ expressions of confusion and concern.

Mummy asks softly, ‘What happened, Lilibet?’

She wants to cry. Her mother never calls her Lilibet anymore, only in moments of distress. She says, ‘We discussed our future and he said he didn’t want to get married, so we made the decision to end our relationship.’

Her parents don’t respond for a long time, so she looks up at them. They are exchanging a glance fraught with meaning, but then her mother realizes she’s looking at them.

‘Oh, my darling,’ her mother says, reaching out to take her hand. ‘Oh, sweetheart, I am so, so sorry.’

‘As am I,’ her father adds.

The waiter returns, thank God, and breaks the uncomfortable silence again. He pours a small amount of wine for her mother to taste, who pronounces it excellent, and then they are each poured a glass. She raises hers to her lips immediately and takes a welcome sip as her parents order their dinner. She adds her order as well.

‘Have you told anyone else?’ her mother asks.

‘Just Nicky. He came to Bermuda with me.’

‘I’m glad he was there for you,’ her father says gravely.

‘As was I,’ she admits. There is another silence. She breaks it by asking them to tell her all about their Fourth of July, and in this way dinner passes.

When they finally leave, her parents walk her home, and they linger outside the building.

Mummy asks, ‘Do you want me to stay with you for a little while? Or do you want to come home with us?’

She shakes her head. ‘I’ll be fine. Thank you.’

‘What about this weekend?’

‘Nicky and I are going to Sally’s new house on Centre Island.’ 

‘That sounds like it will be a good time,’ her father says. ‘It’s beautiful this time of year.’

She nods. ‘Thank you for dinner.’

Mummy hugs her tightly. ‘I love you, my darling girl. Please let me know if I can do anything.’

She nods and hugs her back, then hugs her father. ‘Good night.’

‘Good night,’ they say, and she steps inside the lobby, heading upstairs to her apartment. She did it. She got through it without crying. She should be proud.

The week passes slowly. Work is difficult, especially going into the precinct. There is a lot of tension there and Lennie feels awkward with her, she can tell. Well, she feels awkward with him, too. And it feels beyond strange to be at the precinct without Mike there. She passes his desk at least a dozen times and each time she expects him to be there, leaning back in his seat, raising an eyebrow at her, grinning at her.

He’s not.

Her patients are glad to see her, especially Julie Atkinson. She’s glad to throw herself into her patients’ therapy. It gives her little time to think about herself, which is a relief.

It feels so strange to not be with him any longer. Almost four years… not very long, if you think about it in relation to an entire lifetime, but he had been such an important part of her life… 

Well, it will take some getting used to, she knows. And to start, she puts all his remaining things away, not that there is much. Her photographs are in albums, but she moves the albums to the cabinets beneath her bookshelves instead of keeping them on display. She can’t quite pack everything away, though. She keeps the three tshirts he left out, but she puts the answering machine tape with messages from him on it in a shoebox on the top shelf of her closet. She unscrews the tie rack from his closet and puts some of her things back in it again.

It feels better now, for some reason. Her apartment is hers again, not theirs. She rearranges the furniture a bit so that it’s the way she likes and starts sleeping in the middle of the bed. And if she still sleeps with one of his tshirts, like a teddy bear, she’s making progress.


	23. Parents

He only gets one phone call. It’s from Liz’s father. He doesn’t pick it up--he’s been screening his calls--but he listens to the message.

‘Michael, this is Nick Olivet.’ He pauses. ‘Isobel and I had dinner with Elizabeth last night. She told us that you had separated. That your relationship ended because you didn’t want to marry her.’ He sighs. ‘It seems incredible to me that you would go to the effort of asking Isobel and myself to have lunch with you to ask for our blessing to propose to our daughter and then suddenly change your mind within a week. Something else obviously happened. She didn’t confide in us and we didn’t press her, as we are loath to cause her any more distress.’ He pauses again. ‘We won’t tell her that you bought her an engagement ring or asked for our blessing. Obviously that’s pointless now, as it would only cause her more pain. Please do not contact her or contact us again. I think that’s the least that you can do.’

He listens to the message once more, then erases it and goes out to run around the park.

On Friday he and Sherri go out to dinner with her parents. He’d been congratulating himself that they hadn’t done that yet, but they’re almost two weeks into their relationship or whatever the hell they’ve got going on and he supposes that it’s allowed. They’ve spent part of almost every day together.

At least they’re not making the same mistakes he and Liz did. He made it clear to Sherri from the get-go that he’s not looking for marriage or children, and she confirmed that neither is she. ‘I’m in my late twenties,’ she said. ‘I want time to be free before settling down.’

He’s glad of that.

Even if he doesn’t want anything serious with Sherri, he takes his time getting ready, and he bought her a bouquet of flowers as a surprise for when they get home. He wears one of the nice suits Liz got him and one of the shirts, too, and adds a toned-down plaid tie. They’re meeting at Cipriani’s on Wall Street, because it’s close for both Sherri and Sherri’s dad. He’s glad they’re leaving the village that is the East Side. The last thing he wants to do is run into one of Liz’s people again.

He meets Sherri outside the restaurant. She looks beautiful, wearing a nice black dress that fits her perfectly. He kisses her and when they pull away from each other she rests her hand on his chest.

‘You look great,’ she says. ‘Thanks for doing this.’

‘Sure,’ he replies. ‘How was court?’

She grins. ‘Great. Closing statements were in the morning, the jury came back in the afternoon--four counts of Rape 1 to be served consecutively.’

‘That’s great!’ he tells her. ‘The bastard deserved it.’

‘I agree. Now, let’s go in--I really want some champagne to celebrate.’

They wait at the bar for Sherri’s parents and she orders a glass of champagne. He orders a Bushmills--he feels in need of extra fortification. They’re halfway through their drinks when her parents come up to them. Her father looks like a rancher who happens to be wearing a suit--warm, friendly, and slightly rugged. Her mother is like Sherri, but shorter and smaller. There’s a round of introductions--both her father, Rick, and her mother, Wendy, are thrilled to meet him.

They find their table. Rick orders a bottle of champagne after Sherri proudly announces her first win as first chair. He plays the role of good boyfriend--compliments Sherri’s mother, asks Sherri’s father about his work and listens attentively. If they heard he’s been sentenced to Staten Island, which they must have, they make no comment, nor do they show anything but delight at meeting him.

What a change that is from meeting Liz’s parents for the first time! They were standoffish, and borderline rude, though Isobel would never be outright rude. The only person who bothered to give him the time of day was Miranda, until he joined that whole crew for post-Christmas celebrations and he finally wrung some respect out of Liz’s parents. Just because he’s not some trust fund brat he had to work to be accepted by them. He’s still angry about it.

Sherri’s parents are totally different from Nick and Isobel and also different from his own. When dinner comes to a close, it comes to light that Rick has already paid the bill, and the evening continues genially at the bar. Sherri and her mom talk together, while he and Rick talk too--about Sherri, a bit, but about their relocation to Manhattan, Sherri’s job and his own, how they overlap.

When the night ends, Sherri’s parents say goodbye and hug them both, then Sherri’s dad hails them a cab.

‘That went great!’ Sherri says with enthusiasm, snuggling up to him after they give the cabbie her address. ‘They loved you.’

‘They’re great people,’ he says, kissing the top of their head. ‘I really liked them.’

‘Good,’ Sherri replies. ‘I’m so glad.’

They sit in a comfortable silence for a while before she asks tentatively, ‘Did you meet your ex’s parents?’

He feels himself tense but forces himself to relax. It’s a logical question and he shouldn’t mind answering. ‘Yeah,’ he tells her. ‘I did. They didn’t think I was good enough for their daughter. I wasn’t some spoiled trust fund brat or a broker or whatever. Your parents didn’t seem to care.’

‘They care about the individual, not the trappings of life,’ she says. ‘My parents were the first people in their families to go to college.’

He nods, his chin rubbing against the top of her head. ‘Well, they must be really proud of you.’

‘What did your ex do?’

He can’t deal with that right now. Talking about Isobel and Nick in the abstract, that’s one thing, but talking about Liz… ‘Can we talk about it later? I’m really wiped out.’

‘Of course,’ she says, and yawns. ‘Me too. It was a very long day.’

‘Yeah,’ he agrees, and yawns too. ‘It was. At least tomorrow’s Saturday.’

‘Mmhmm. Maybe we can go for a run together and then have brunch somewhere.’

‘Great,’ he says. ‘That sounds great.’


	24. Friday

It’s hard to get through the week. She’s tired. She wants to be doing something, but it’s too hot to play tennis and swimming at the Colony Club pool, as nice as it is, isn’t remotely as nice as swimming in Bermuda.

The week is difficult not just because she’s adjusting to her new life, but because she forgets what’s happened so often. During lunch, for instance, she’ll plan a dinner menu and take into account his tastes. She’s received some mail for him. She doesn’t receive any phone calls from his family or friends, however. She’d expected Katy to call, at least. Obviously he’s telling people they’ve broken up, because he told Nicky, and she’d thought… she and Katy are friends. Were friends.

On Thursday night, she’s ready to spend the weekend away, especially with her friends. She and Sally spoke briefly on Tuesday and she said that Jane and Jane’s husband Roger would join them as well. She’s glad--it will be a good group of them. She doesn’t know Sally’s new beau, Tim, well, and she’s glad that Jane and Roger are at least familiar. She’s glad, too, that Cynthia won’t be joining them. She loves her friend, but her approach to relationships isn’t one that she agrees with, and it will be better with a calmer group of friends.

After she packs for the weekend, she sits down and makes a list of all the things that are positive about their breakup.

_Weekends away with friends_   
_I can see my friends more_   
_Food--I can cook what I like_   
_Better schedule--not constantly staying up late_   
_Not mixing work with personal relationship_   
_No more contretemps over my background and upbringing_

She doesn’t make a list of the negatives. She doesn't have enough paper for that and besides, she needs to focus on the positive aspects of this new (and unwelcome) turn of events.

She brings her weekend bag with her to her office. Her last session ends at five, so she’ll have plenty of time to get to Penn and find her friends in their designated meeting spot. She always regrets that Penn doesn’t have a bar like the Campbell Apartment. Too bad Jackie Kennedy didn’t go to bat for Penn the way she did for Grand Central, she thinks, unlocking her office door. So they’ll meet in the Central Corridor and get a drink from one of the bar carts on the platform.

She’s glad she’ll be going away this weekend. It will be good to just be with friends and not dwell on this. She knows that Nicky told Sally and Jane that she and Mike are no longer together; she gave him permission to do so, because she just couldn’t. It was hard enough telling her parents. So at least there won’t be any questions about that this weekend. They can just relax and enjoy themselves.

The day ticks by. She sees patients, completes a report for the DA’s office, and sees another patient. Finally it’s time to go. She locks away her files, double-checks to make sure she has everything, and says goodbye to Jessica, her receptionist/office manager/lifesaver. She walks a few blocks to the E and takes it to Penn.

She’s been making an effort to spend most nights alone. She can’t drown what she feels with company, because she won’t be spending every minute of every day with people. She needs to learn to cope on her own, without distractions.

She’s made a rule for herself. For now, she’ll see friends once during the work week, and she can spend weekends with friends or family. She enjoys her own company, and in the past she’s been grateful for an odd evening alone. Well, it looks as though it won’t just be the odd evening any more.

She shouldn’t be feeling like this. It’s far better to be on her own than with someone who has spent years lying to her, but enjoying his company… that won’t disappear overnight. She misses him. She can’t help that. She’ll miss him for a long, long time, and not only him, the reality of him, but the future she imagined for them…

It feels so strange. She thought she knew what the next five, ten, twenty years held for her. For them. And now… now, he’s off alone, or not… she rather thinks not. She’s thought a lot about what Nicky told her, that Mike said they’d broken up a while ago. That wasn’t true. And the way Nicky looked when he said it… what if he saw Mike with someone else?

 _Stop_ , she tells herself. _You’re going to cry. You’re in public._ They’re two stops away from Penn but the train is stopped at the platform. She redirects her thoughts--she’s getting good at this. _What will your future look like, Elizabeth? You have the choice now to make it what you will without any constrictions from anyone else._

What does she want? Taken as a whole, she’s happy with her life. She is passionate about her chosen field. She is grateful that it allows her to live as she’d like. She loves her family and her friends. She loves where she lives. So yes, many of the things she has now are things that she wants in the future, too.

What else does she want? Someone who loves her, though she supposes she can do without that. She had for years, after all, after Luc and before Mike. And a child. Of the things she has, and she is blessed, those are the two things she still wants.

She doesn’t want to dwell on this, on children, on the thought of children. If she doesn’t have children, she will still have a good and happy and fulfilling life. Look at Peter and Miranda. They don’t have children, they never married, and never for an instant has she ever thought their life was any less fulfilling than that of her parents’.

But she still feels as though something is missing from her life. Well, of course, something is missing now. She has a life of her own, a good life, but Mike enriched it, changed it, made it better…

She won’t love anyone like that again. How could she? It’s not hyperbole, or her being dramatic--it’s a simple fact. She loved someone with her entire being and he betrayed her. She could never make that leap again.

It was good while it lasted, she thinks as the train starts to move again. They had good times together. She felt happy and loved and needed in a way she never thought she’d feel. It was wonderful. Of course it came to an end… nothing lasts, really, does it? Especially not something so… complete.

_This stop is Penn Station/34th Street. Transfer is available…_

She makes her way to the doors and steps off the train and onto the platform. She makes her way through the crowds down to the Long Island Railroad concourse.

Nicky is waiting in their designated spot, holding what appears to be two gin & tonics. He smiles when she waves to him and lifts one of the drinks.

‘Got you a G&T,’ he calls, and when she’s in reach she kisses his cheek. ‘Hi, darling.’

‘Hi, Nicky,’ she says, accepting the proffered drink gratefully. ‘I needed this.’

‘I hate the first week after vacation,’ he agrees. ‘At least we’re going to have a nice little break now.’

‘Mm,’ she agrees, taking a sip. The drink is icy cold and very strong, surprising for Penn Station but very welcome.

‘So Sally and Tim actually took an earlier train,’ he explains. ‘She called me at the office. She thought that she could pick us up and we could head back to the house and unpack and change, then have cocktails and a barbecue. What do you think?’

‘That sounds perfect,’ she admits. ‘The ideal start to the weekend.’

‘I agree,’ he says. She takes another sip of her drink. ‘Jane and Roger are going to take the train with us,’ he says, checking his watch. ‘I hope they get here soon. They’ll announce the track soon and I don’t want to fight for seats.’

‘Grand Central and Metro North run so much smoother than the LIRR. When the track is only announced half an hour in advance people grumble.’

‘Are we late?’ they hear Jane call, looking up to see her heading towards them, Roger lumbered down with their bags. ‘I need this weekend--I cannot wait for some adult conversation!’

Roger finally catches up with them. She likes him--he’s a surgeon and he and Jane met in college. Roger has a great sense of humor, which her reserved and often judgemental friend needs.

‘I swear, Jane packed everything but the kitchen sink for my mother-in-law,’ he says goodnaturedly. ‘It’s our first time leaving the baby overnight.’

‘And it was atrociously difficult,’ Jane says. ‘I need a drink, and we need to find seats, and I want to hear all the gossip. Where’s Sally?’

‘She and Tim took an earlier train, they’ll pick us up from the station,’ Nicky says.

‘Good. Are we going out or staying in? I’m dying to see Sally’s new house.’

‘Staying in,’ Nicky confirms.

The track is called.

‘Good,’ Roger says. ‘Let’s wait for the rush and then get drinks. It looks like you two need refills.’

‘I agree,’ she says, surprising herself. She hasn’t had more than a glass of wine since they returned home, but she’s with friends, and it’s a weekend. Why not relax a little bit?

They get their drinks and find seats together on the train. Nicky puts their bags in the overhead rack while she holds his drink; when he finishes, he settles across from her. They have the window seats and Jane and Roger have the aisles.

Jane nudges her hip with hers. ‘I’m glad you’re coming out this weekend, Liz. I’ve missed you. We haven’t seen you since Carlotta’s christening!’

She takes a sip of her drink and nods. ‘I know--I’ve missed you, too. How is Carlotta?’

Jane starts describing her four-month-old daughter, how she smiled for real for the first time, how she loves to go on walks and be in the water. She talks about the playdates she and Audrey set up for their children--Audrey’s son was born two days before Jane’s daughter--and how much fun it is to be raising children together.

‘Now we just need you and Mike to have kids,’ Jane says, then claps her hand over her mouth.

She looks down into her drink and takes a deep breath.

‘Liz, I am so sorry--’ Jane says.

She shakes her head though her heart is sinking. No, she thinks, I won’t let this ruin the weekend. She forces herself to adopt a light tone. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s going to take some time for all of us to adjust. In the meantime, I’m really looking forward to this weekend.’

She feels Nicky’s knee press against hers in a show of support. She doesn’t look at him--if she does, she feels as though her precarious grip on her anticipation for the weekend will vanish.

Jane smiles and squeezes her wrist. ‘Me too.’

She smiles back, and if she feels her smile wavering she puts it firmly out of her mind.

Sally is leaning against the hood of her car when they exit the train. ‘Hello, hello!’ she calls, waving to them. When they reach her, there is the usual flurry of greetings and kisses. ‘Tim’s at the house, mixing Southsides. He stole a bottle of the secret mix from the club, so we just had to have them tonight.’

‘Perfect,’ Nicky says to Sally. ‘Let’s go.’

She sits in the backseat between Nicky and Jane; Roger is up front. Sally drives, chatting as they head out.

‘We’re having lobsters tonight,’ she says with glee, ‘and oysters to start, and sweet corn with the oysters… I went to Youngs and picked up blueberry pies…’

‘Sounds like a celebration,’ Jane says. ‘So what are we celebrating?’

‘Lots of things,’ Sally says, looking at them in the rearview mirror and smiling as she swings onto Centre Island. ‘Your first weekend away from Carlotta, you all coming to visit for the first time… except Nick, of course.’ They laugh. ‘An SFRP reunion, even if we are missing Audrey and Charlie and Fred.’

‘Well, I for one am glad to be here,’ she says, feeling relaxed as they drive further onto the island--well, peninsula, really.

‘We’re glad you’re here too, darling,’ Nicky says, wrapping his arm around her shoulders.

Sally makes a turn and they drive towards Seawanhaka. She looks at the clubhouse and suddenly remembers all the times she’s been there--as a child for the Fourth of July, running on the lawn; with her family for clambakes; sailing from her parents’ house across the Sound for lunch.

They drive past the club and turn again, finally turning into a small gravelled drive.

‘Here we are!’ Sally says, pulling up in front of the house.

It’s a lovely little house, she thinks. The old white colonial perches on a small rise, with a long green lawn flowing down to the water. There are lots of windows and it just looks perfect.

‘It’s beautiful, Sally,’ she says when they get out of the car. ‘It’s so lovely.’

Sally smiles. ‘I’m glad you like it. I was lucky to find it, and now that I’ve finally finished renovating it’s perfect.’ She turns to her guests. ‘I’ll show you all your rooms, then you can freshen up and join us outside for cocktails.’

The room that is hers for the weekend is charming. It’s a small little room, tucked under the eaves, but it has a huge window looking down to the Sound. The room was obviously an attic, with the sloping ceilings and exposed beams, but Sally’s done it up beautifully. There’s a large wrought-iron bed with huge fluffy pillows and duvet. She can’t wait to climb into it tonight.

She hangs her dresses in the wardrobe and folds her clothes neatly in the drawer beneath it. Her bedroom has a beautiful cheval glass in the corner, next to the door that leads to her small bathroom. The clawfoot tub is situated perfectly beneath a small window, and she knows that when she takes a bath she’ll be able to look out at the water too.

She would like a house like this, one day. A small house, tucked away in the trees, on the water… she would have loved to have a house like this with Mike, maybe in Maine or on the Cape, somewhere they could escape… But that won’t happen.

She washes her hands and face and studies her expression in the mirror. There are lines in her face that haven’t been there for a long time, since after the fall of 1992. Lines by her eyes, one on either side of her mouth. Her lips are pressed tight together even in repose.

It will take a long, long time to get past this, won’t it?

What hurts the most? Is it that she’s been deluding herself for years? Or that he was so cruel to her? Or that he cheated on her? No, she thinks. It’s that her whole life was a lie. That what she imagined was their--her--future was a lie.

She hears the clock downstairs chime eight o’clock. She has only a few more minutes before she needs to be downstairs too, so she looks away from her reflection and leaves the bathroom.

It’s a hot evening and she’s put on a simple, ancient shift dress, pale blue and embroidered with lobsters and daisies. She’s brought down her Jack Rogers sandals, too, and slips into them when she reaches the living room. The French doors are standing open and for a moment she lingers just inside the house, looking down at the sweeping lawn.

Her friends are all downstairs. Sally’s set a beautiful table, with a bouquet of late-blooming peonies and hydrangeas on a pale blue tablecloth. There’s a hammock strung between two trees with a view of the water. Someone brought out Sally’s grandparents’ old gramaphone, the one that you need to crank to play, and Duke Ellington is playing. The wrought-iron barcart is out too, a pitcher of Southsides resting on it, along with bottles of wine and glasses.

And her friends. The SFRP are standing in groups on the patio, cocktails in hand, laughing. The grill is going, and Tim and Roger are standing beside it. There’s a platter of hors d’oeuvres and one of oysters too. She steps out onto the lawn.

The evening, as it wends on, takes on a hazy golden quality, just like that first Thanksgiving together. This is the epitome of a summer evening, the ideal summer evening… the cocktails, the wine, the oysters and lobster and the music, the fireflies that come out, the soft glow of the candles, her friends. She’s lucky. She’s so very, very lucky.

She feels fuzzy and tired by the time Sally has to crank the gramophone again after their post-dinner dancing. She and Nicky have been spinning around and the world is spinning a bit now, too. She takes a seat gratefully on one of the chaises, accepting a glass of ice water from Nicky. He sits down next to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. She closes her eyes.

She must fall asleep for a bit, because the next thing she knows she’s hearing them speak quietly.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Jane says in a hushed voice. ‘I really thought he’d propose on this trip.’

They’re talking about her, she realizes, and keeps her eyes closed.

‘Me too,’ Nicky says. She can feel the rumble of his voice in his chest. ‘But he’s an asshole. She’s better off without him.’ He lowers his voice. ‘Before I went out to Bermuda, when I found out… I saw him with someone else at the movie theater. On a date. Kissing someone else. And they’d only broken up a day before.’

She hears them hiss with surprise. ‘He’s worse than Tom,’ Sally says bluntly, referencing Nicky’s ex-boyfriend.

‘Yeah, he is,’ Nicky agrees. He sighs deeply. ‘I’m going to wake her up, bring her upstairs. She’s had a long week.’

‘Okay,’ Sally says. ‘We should probably go in too; it’s late. I thought we could go to the club tomorrow for brunch.’

‘Great,’ Nicky says. ‘Don’t mention what I told you. I don’t want her to know.’

‘We won’t,’ Jane promises. ‘We won’t tell anyone.’

She feels Nicky nod. After a moment, she hears Sally and Jane start to gather up things, and Nicky runs his hand down her arm.

‘Let’s get you upstairs, Lilibet,’ he says. She opens her eyes. He’s looking down at her with affection and not pity and she’s grateful for that. She yawns and nods and takes his hand, helping her sit up.

She intends to take a bath after they get upstairs so that she can think about what she’s heard, but her bed’s siren call is too alluring to ignore. She undresses, dropping the dress on the ground, and opens the window, then climbs into bed in just her underwear, pulling the duvet over her. She closes her eyes and falls asleep again almost immediately.


	25. Liar

He and Sherri head over to his place on Saturday morning. She’s been curious to see it and he can’t think of an excuse to stay at hers any longer, even though her apartment is infinitely nicer than his. Anyway, he needs to check his mail and his messages.

While he makes them some lunch and Sherri’s flipping through his records, he presses play on his machine. He’s only got a couple messages, but one’s from his sister, asking if he can come over for brunch tomorrow.

‘What d’you think?’ he asks Sherri impulsively. ‘Wanna meet my family?’

She looks thrilled. ‘Yes, of course. I’d love that.’

‘Great,’ he says. ‘Lemme give her a call.’

He abandons the sandwiches and picks up the phone, dialling his sister’s familiar number.

‘Hello?’ she says.

‘Hey, Katy, it’s Mike,’ he replies.

‘Mike! I’m so glad you called me back. How are you?’ Her voice is concerned and sympathetic and he doesn’t want to deal with it.

‘Yeah, fine. Listen, I got your message about brunch tomorrow. I’d like to bring someone.’

‘Liz?’ she asks hopefully. ‘Please tell me you guys got back together.’

‘Her name’s Sherri,’ he continues, glancing over at her. She smiles at her. ‘She’s great. You’ll love her.’

‘What’s going on, Mike?’ she asks, obviously and totally confused.

‘What time tomorrow?’

‘Eleven,’ she says, resigned.

‘Great, we’ll see you then. Can we bring anything?’

‘No,’ she says, her voice tight. ‘See you tomorrow.’

They hang up and he turns to Sherri. ‘Does eleven tomorrow work?’

She nods. ‘Great. Tell me about them!’

‘Well, I have a brother and a sister,’ he says. ‘My brother and his wife and kids live out on the Island. Katy, my sister, is a year younger than me. She and her husband, Pat, have two kids--Tommy, who’s seven, and Eileen, who’s three. They live in Stuy Town. Pat is the manager of a grocery store and Katy takes in sewing.’ He stops and waits for his reaction.

‘They sound great,’ she says, and he finds himself relaxing a bit. He didn’t think Sherri would care about that, not like spoiled Princess Elizabeth, but still.

His conscience screams at him, _she was never like that and you know it! She loved your family!_

He pushes that aside. ‘Let me finish makin’ lunch.’

As he starts putting the sandwiches on their plates, she asks, ‘Did your sister and her family know your ex?’

He almost expects the question. ‘Yeah,’ he says briefly. ‘They did.’ He gets out a bag of chips.

‘What was she like?’ Her voice is curious but not judgemental, but he’s glad that he can’t see her face from the kitchen. He rests his hands on the counter and lowers his head, looking down at the ground.

‘She was pretty spoiled,’ he says at last. ‘A real Park Avenue princess. Her parents have a lot of money and she grew up getting whatever she wanted. And bein’ with her… it was a constant balancing act. She made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. She was smart as hell and manipulative, too. Sometimes I didn’t realize it until way after, how she got me to do things. But my nephew really loved her. She wanted kids so she was crazy about him. He’s probably the only person she loved selflessly.’ Almost everything he’s said in that answer was a lie. He straightens up. ‘What do you want to drink?’

‘A Coke, if you have one.’

‘Sure,’ he says, and takes his time getting her drink before bringing lunch into the other room.

‘So if your ex was so spoiled and manipulative, why did you stay with her so long?’ Sherri asks him after they’ve finished lunch.

He sighs. ‘Do we really gotta go into this? It’s over.’

‘I’m curious,’ she admits. ‘Because when we got together that time… I guess I just want to know about her.’

‘Fine,’ he says reluctantly. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘How long were you together?’

‘A couple years,’ he says. ‘Off and on.’

‘Did she have any redeeming qualities?’ she asks, her voice teasing. ‘The way you describe her is so negative.’

‘Yeah,’ he admits. ‘She was generous. She was affectionate and thoughtful.’

‘Well, that’s good,’ Sherri says frankly. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted you to have such a miserable few years.’

‘Yeah,’ he shrugs. ‘It wasn’t all bad. It’s just easier to remember the bad stuff, somehow.’

‘I get that,’ she tells him. ‘I had a bad breakup recently, and I really cared about him. When I remember the bad stuff, I can tell myself I’m better off without him.’ She smiles at him. ‘And I’m glad we got together.’

‘Me too,’ he says. ‘We can communicate. I don’t think I really talked to my ex for a long, long time.’

‘I think we communicate well too,’ she agrees, leaning over to kiss him. ‘Especially like this.’

‘I can’t believe you,’ she says, looking so bewildered and lost he just wants to put his arms around her. ‘My God, sleeping with someone else when we’d been broken up less than a day? I can’t believe you, Mike.’ She shakes her head. ‘I thought you loved me. I guess I was wrong.’

‘Lizzie, no, you weren’t, you weren’t wrong--’ he tells her, reaching out for her. She lets him take her hands. ‘I love you, honey.’

‘How can I believe that?’ she asks. ‘When you cheated on me… when you told me you didn’t want to marry me or even move in with me… how the hell can I believe that you love me?’

‘I bought you an engagement ring,’ he tells her, letting go of her hands to dig through his pockets. ‘It’s somewhere…’ He finally finds the box and he hands it to her. She opens it.

‘It’s empty,’ she says, her voice carefully emotionless. ‘Is this supposed to be a joke?’

‘It’s somewhere, Lizzie, I promise,’ he says, turning out his pockets. ‘Diamonds and a sapphire, like I knew you’d want, I got it for you--’

She hands him back the empty box. ‘I didn’t think you were this cruel, Mike. But I guess I’m realizing that I never knew you at all. I thought I did.’

‘Sweetheart--’

‘Stop,’ she tells him. ‘Just stop.’

They stand there, staring at each other.

She finally turns away. ‘Just don’t talk to me again.’

He wakes up, gasping for breath, like he’s been drowning. Sherri’s asleep next to him. He looks at the clock. Three a.m. He gets out of bed and gets a glass of water, then tries to go back to sleep. 

After tossing and turning for an hour, he gives it up as a bad job. Sherri’s still sleeping peacefully. If he’d been in bed with Liz, she would’ve woken up by now and they would’ve at least made his insomnia worth something. He’s sure Sherri would be just as obliging if he woke her up, but he doesn’t want to.

He’ll go for a run in a little bit, but right now he gets out of bed and makes his way to the closet. He didn’t draw the blinds last night, so there’s a bit of light from the streetlight. He gets his running clothes out, then, after a moment’s pause, lifts down the box of photographs he put away. He heads out to the living room, closing his bedroom door behind him.

She has more pictures from their life together than he does--she was usually the one who brought a camera, because hers was really nice--but he does have a lot of his own. He turns on the light, lifts the lid off the box, and starts to look through them.

He shoved them in here at random, so they’re not in any particular order. Here’s her birthday party last year. Here’s his birthday in the Hamptons. Here’s Christmas with her family and Thanksgiving, the first time they celebrated together. Here she is with his nephew. Here she is holding his newborn niece, looking so completely happy to be cradling this baby. Here they are in Bermuda--the first time. Here they are in Ireland, standing together, their hands clasped and bound together with a blue silk ribbon. His uncle is in front of them, reading from his prayerbook. He’d forgotten about that.

How could he have forgotten it? Well, he’d remembered the blessing part from time to time but the other… They’d gone to Ireland and pretended to be married because his family was very religious and strict about pre-marital sex, let alone sharing the same room. So they’d pretended to be married and on their honeymoon. At the time he thought it was good to try it on, and he’d given her his great-grandmother’s claddagh ring to wear… she’d been thrilled.

They went out west, to the village where his dad was born, for his great-grandmother’s ninetieth birthday. And they got there, and everyone was thrilled to see him and meet her, and his uncle the priest said he wanted to bless their marriage in the Church. And--he still doesn’t know what possessed him, but he said that yeah, he’d like that if they didn’t do it in the actual church.

And his great-aunt Caroline said that they should be handfast. Something about that appealed to him more--that they’d be making their own promises to each other, not promises dictated by the Church or by the state. The promises that they made were the only ones that mattered.

So they’d stood together and held hands and his great-aunt had tied that ribbon around their hands. He’d promised to be true to her and she’d promised the same and now, looking at that picture--he can see the joy shining from her, because they made vows that she believed, she believed they would be together forever, and in that picture he can see how happy he was too, because he thought that this was enough… 

When he took his things, he took the claddagh ring from her jewelry box. He didn’t know where that ribbon was, but she’d cherished it, the symbol that they’d belonged to each other.

Well, he broke that bond. He closes his eyes and, after a moment, shoves the photographs back in it. He puts the box under the sofa and puts on his running clothes, scrawling a note for Sherri before letting himself out of his apartment.


	26. Dreaming

She’s in the precinct conference room when he comes in, his suit jacket off, tie loosened, the first few buttons of his shirt undone. She looks up at him and smiles and he smiles back, closing the door behind him, then lowering the blinds.

‘You look so sexy today,’ he tells her, stepping closer. She feels her heart beat faster as he stops in front of her, pulling her up to stand. He rests his hands on her waist and smiles down at her again, his grin wicked. ‘I’ve been thinkin’ about this all day,’ he says, running one hand down her back. She shivers and he chuckles before he focuses his complete attention on her, lifting her up to sit on the table.

‘Mike,’ she says, her heart pounding now. ‘We’re at work.’

‘The door’s locked,’ he replies, stepping to stand between her legs. He slides one hand up the back of her knee, higher, to her thigh, resting there beneath her dress. Her knees feel weak. ‘And you can’t wear this dress, Lizzie, and not want me to ravish you.’

She swallows, an attempt to ease the sudden dryness in her mouth. ‘It can’t wait till we get home?’

He shakes his head, stepping closer to her so that their bodies touch. _No_ , she thinks giddily, suddenly, acutely aware of just how much he wants her. _It can’t wait till later_.

‘I need you, honey,’ he says, slipping his other hand beneath her dress. One hand has moved up higher, tracing the edge of her underwear, the other is hiking up the skirt of her dress. He bends to kiss her.

She’s felt frozen up until now, but now she wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. She can feel him pressing against her, then he shifts slightly to move his hand where she needs him to be. She breaks the kiss to moan and he pulls her closer, making sure their bodies touch as much as possible. He bends his head and kisses her jaw, moving lower, then kisses her collarbone, pushing the neckline of her dress away so that he can kiss her.

She’s finding it hard to breathe, suddenly, as he circles his hand, as he lifts his head to kiss her properly, his obvious need for her arousing too.

There’s a knock on the door, and she opens her eyes, seeing an unfamiliar ceiling. It takes a moment to place herself, her body still wound tight with desire.

‘Lilibet?’ Nicky says. ‘Sally thought we’d go to the club for brunch in about an hour. I brought you some coffee.’

She clears her throat and sits up. ‘Thank you. I need to get out of bed.’

‘Okay. I’ll see you downstairs when you’re ready. I’m leaving the coffee outside the door.’

‘Thank you,’ she calls, and waits until she hears him walk back downstairs before getting out of bed. She yanks on last night’s dress for a minute to get her coffee, then closes her door, takes it off again, and draws a bath.

As the bathwater runs, she forces herself to take her time to pick something to wear for brunch. It’ll be casual, so she pulls out an old sleeveless Seawanhaka polo and a pair of khaki shorts. She’ll wear her Sperrys, too.

She brings her coffee to the bathroom with her. She tests the water and when it’s hot and deep enough she climbs in. She leans back and takes a sip of coffee.

She was right about him after all. No wonder Nicky came to Bermuda to be with her. He knew she’d find out eventually and knew that she’d need his support in any case.

He didn’t even wait twenty-four hours before picking someone else up.

Who was it? Was it Sherri? Was it someone else, a former girlfriend, someone he’d flirted with in the past?

God, she thinks. It really did mean nothing to him after all, all their life together…

She closes her eyes. Her body is still wound tight and the hot water is doing nothing to relax it. It felt so real… she’d thought it was real. She felt him, and the way he spoke to her… the way he wanted her…

She feels a wave of heat wash over her again as she recalls her dream. But then it turns sour as she sees him instead push her away, hears him tell her that the last thing he wants is for her to be in his bed, in his life, in his heart… she opens her eyes. She feels sick to her stomach.

She leans forward and drains the bathtub, then climbs out. From the window she can see some of her friends on the patio. Sally’s wearing a nice sundress and Nicky is wearing a blazer. She’ll wear something nice, too.

She has to get ready quickly as she’s running out of time. She takes care, anyway, to look her best. Finally she is satisfied. The dress that she picks is a new one that she’d bought for Bermuda, white with red flowers, a scoop neck, and a full skirt. It’s a carefree sort of dress and she hopes that she’ll live up to it.

The club is only a two-minute drive away, which is good as she’s perched awkwardly on Nicky’s lap and the road is notoriously bumpy. They only took one car so that only one person will need to refrain from drinking; as Jane isn’t drinking anyway, she’ll drive back. After nearly hitting her head on the roof of the car for the third time, Sally pulls into the driveway and parks. She sighs in relief and gets out of the car first, smoothing down the skirt of her dress.

Nicky gets out next and wraps his arm around her shoulders. ‘Southsides ahead!’ he declares, and she chuckles. ‘Let’s go.’

They step into the familiar club. She and Sally are members, but Jane and Nicky have also spent a lot of time here. Although she is a member, how long has it been since she was here? Maybe a year, since her aunt Janet’s sixtieth birthday party. Mike didn’t come to that. She can’t remember if he’s ever been here.

They make their way to the dining room. Sally reserved a table on the porch and they take their seats and give their orders to the waiter.

It’s a beautiful day, she thinks, looking around. People are out on the water, spinnakers flying. The porch slowly fills up and she and Sally greet acquaintances. The weather is perfect and the food is good and the cocktails are delicious but she has to keep dragging her attention back to her friends and she has to keep reminding herself to be present. It’s a losing battle.

A week from today is his birthday. Bermuda was his big present, but she’d also bought things for him--Knicks season tickets for the upcoming year, a new shirt and tie, the promise of a weekend away together. The problem is, she’s already purchased all of these things. What can she do with them? The shirt was custom-made for him, so that’s not returnable. The tie she can probably return. And the tickets?

Maybe she should just send them to him anyway. She doesn’t even want to go through the motions of returning these things, and the shirt and tickets cost a not-insignificant amount of money.

She’ll send him the shirt and the tie, at least, she thinks, then she reminds herself, _no. Have some self-respect, Elizabeth_. She’ll keep the shirt and return the tie and find a way to sell the tickets, or get rid of them somehow. Give them away. She’ll figure it out.

‘Liz!’ someone calls, and she looks up to see her cousin Helen. She joins them and nods hello to her friends before focusing her attention on her. ‘I thought that was you. I didn’t know you were out this weekend!’

‘Yes, Sally--you remember Sally?’ she says, and Helen nods, offering her a smile. ‘Sally invited me out for the weekend. Everyone, this is my cousin Helen. Helen, this is--’

‘Yes, hi,’ Helen interrupts. ‘Liz, Mama wants to talk to you.’

‘I’ll come say hello in a few minutes,’ she says. ‘Where are you sitting?’

‘No, now,’ Helen tells her. ‘She’s eager to talk to you.’

She meets Sally’s eyes and raises her eyebrows in a silent show of exasperation. Sally muffles a laugh behind her napkin before hiding it in a cough. ‘Well, we’re done with lunch, we were just going to enjoy some Southsides. We’ll be here when you get back.’

She nods and stands. Helen smiles, pleased that she’s won, and loops her arm in hers to lead her to the other side of the porch.

‘Mama saw you when we came out but she wasn’t sure it was you. She thought that you would have told us you were coming.’

At this precise moment, she understands exactly what Mike must have felt on occasion--the weight of these family bonds. ‘I wasn’t sure you were in town. I’m glad to see you.’ Her words are said without enthusiasm, though Helen doesn’t notice.

‘Me too--and I’d be happier to see Mike,’ she adds, grinning. ‘He’s so hot, Liz.’

‘We’re not together any more,’ she tells her cousin, who stops short and nearly trips her.

‘What? When did that happen?’

‘A few weeks ago,’ she says.

She sees Helen wrestle for an appropriate response. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you,’ she replies, surprised that her words are actually acceptable.

‘Here’s Mama,’ Helen says with relief.

Her aunt is holding court in the middle of the porch, all heads around her table bent towards her. The people she’s enthralling are mostly young men, she notes, and her aunt breaks off in the middle of her sentence when she sees them.

‘Darling Elizabeth!’ she says, standing up and throwing her arms open, nearly knocking into a passing waiter. ‘What a wicked girl you are, not telling me you were here.’

‘Hello, Aunt Janet,’ she says dutifully, unable to see a way she can avoid this embrace. She kisses her aunt’s cheek and steps back.

‘And where’s your delicious boyfriend?’ she asks into her ear.

She feels her cheeks burning. _My God! Can’t I have any goddamned privacy?_

‘They split up,’ Helen replies quietly.

‘Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry,’ her aunt says, pulling her aside and continuing to talk, thankfully, in a soft voice. ‘He was absolutely delicious, but you’ve got your slumming stage out of your system, hopefully. Do you know who would be perfect for you? Archie Newbold.’

‘Aunt Janet, I just wanted to say hello,’ she says, forcing herself not to show her anger. She wasn’t slumming! ‘I have to get back to my friends.’

‘Well, we’re your family!’ she protests. ‘Come for cocktails tonight. Bring your friends. We’ll have a little party.’

‘Thank you, that would be nice,’ she hears Sally say, feels her friend’s hand on her elbow. ‘Liz, we’ve got to head back. Are you ready?’

‘Come at five!’ Janet says as Sally guides her away.

‘We really don’t need to go,’ she tells Sally as soon as they’re out of earshot.

Sally shrugs. ‘You know she won’t give up until you do go and spend time with them. I’d rather get it over with this trip so when you come out again you don’t need to keep going over--and so we don’t have to avoid the club. It’s not a big deal. We can have dinner in town after.’

‘Thank you,’ she says, grateful for her understanding friend.

Sally smiles. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be with you all the way.’

They spend a lazy afternoon outdoors--most of them, at least. Jane and Roger nap, catching up on four months of missed sleep. She and Nicky play a halfhearted game of badminton with Sally and Tim before they all go for a swim, diving off the dock at the end of the lawn. When their swim is over, they head inside to get ready for the cocktail party.

She takes a quick bath, rinsing the salt water out of her hair, and towel dries it before standing in front of her wardrobe, trying to decide what to wear.

Someone knocks on the door and she opens it, finding Nicky in his robe carrying two elaborate cocktails.

‘Hi, sweetheart,’ he says, stepping inside. ‘Brought you some fortification in the form of some Planters’ Punch.’

She closes the door behind him. ‘Thank you, Nicky.’

‘What are you going to wear?’ he asks her.

She sighs. ‘I don’t know. Help me pick something out?’

‘Gladly,’ he tells her, stepping over to the wardrobe. She perches on the bed and takes a long sip of her drink while he flips through her clothes. ‘You should wear this,’ he says at last, pulling out the cream dress she wore on that sunset sail with Mike in Bermuda. She stares at it for a moment, then nods. She should wear it, if only so it has different associations with it than that one, the night that precipitated their breakup.

‘Thank you,’ she says.

He joins her on the bed. ‘We don’t have to go if you don’t want to.’

‘No,’ she says, ‘it’s fine. Better to do something than just sit around and think.’

He rests his hand on her shoulder. ‘Are you doing okay?’

‘I haven’t really had time to think about it this weekend,’ she admits. ‘So, I suppose that I’m doing better than I was at home.’

‘We all love you, Lilibet. And if there’s anything I can do--anything you need me to do--’

‘I know,’ she says, turning and forcing herself to smile. ‘And I’m grateful. Now, I need to get dressed.’

He stands. ‘I’ll see you downstairs. Yell if you need a hand with the zipper.’

She kisses his cheek impulsively and when the door closes behind him, goes into her little bathroom to put on her makeup.

Half an hour later they are en route to Inis Fada. Tim and Roger have elected to stay at home, so Jane is driving, Sally is next to her, and she and Nicky are in the backseat. Sally and Jane are keeping up a lively conversation, guessing who will be at this cocktail hour, and she’s holding Nicky’s hand tight, looking out the window.

As they get closer to Inis Fada, she gives Jane directions. It always feels strange to her, coming here. When her grandparents were alive, they spent quite a lot of time here. She had her own room in the big house, while Janet and her husband lived in the carriage house. Then her grandparents died and Janet and her husband moved into the big house with their children and they still came to visit, though less frequently. If things had been different--if her mother hadn’t persuaded her father to stay in the city and then at Southerly--then she would have grown up here.

The sight of the house always takes her breath away. It’s more formal than Southerly. Inis Fada is a red-brick Georgian house with two ivy-covered wings folding back. The graveled forecourt is filled with cars.

‘I guess it’s a party,’ Nicky comments as Jane parks.

‘I guess so,’ she agrees. They get out of the car and she takes a deep breath. ‘Let’s go.’

One of Janet’s affectations is retaining her parents’ tradition of having a butler. Their longtime butler is the son of her grandparents’ butler, and he smiles when he sees her.

‘Miss Elizabeth! It’s been a long time.’

‘Yes, it has--how have you been, Graves?’ she asks.

‘I can’t complain, Miss Elizabeth. Cocktails are outside.’

‘Thank you,’ she says, and leads her friends through the house to the back.

The party--because it is a party--is in full swing.

‘There must be fifty people here,’ Sally says. ‘My God.’

‘Your aunt is something else,’ Jane adds.

‘Well, I’ll go see her,’ she tells them. ‘Tell her that we’re here. The sooner I do it, the sooner we can go.’

‘I’ll go with you,’ Nicky offers.

‘Well, we’re going to get something to drink,’ Sally declares, and leads Jane off to the bar.

‘We might as well go,’ she tells Nicky. ‘I just want to get out of here.’

‘It’ll be all right,’ Nicky says. ‘Hey, it’ll even be fun. We can get really drunk and do something crazy.’

She shakes her head with a smile. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

He shrugs and smiles back at her. ‘You’re the boss. Now, let’s get this over with.’

Nick is soon caught up in the whirl of the party, pulled away by a boarding school friend, leaving her alone. Sally and Jane are caught up, too, and she takes her brief moment of liberty to head into the house.

The house is quiet after the roar of the party. She can hear the grandfather clock in the hall tick softly to itself. It feels almost as if she’s in a museum. She could have grown up here, she thinks again, but she’s glad now and always that she didn’t. Southerly and her apartment… those are her homes.

But still, she had loved this house. She goes up the back staircase to the third floor, to the room that used to be hers. The door is closed, so she raps lightly on it before easing it open.

The room is empty and has obviously been unused for some time, perhaps since the last time she was here. How long ago was that? She steps inside and closes the door behind her, then finds the lightswitch.

It looks the same, she thinks. The same William Morris wallpaper--the Strawberry Thief--the same narrow canopy bed, the same mahogany wardrobe. She steps over to the bed and the nightstand and opens the drawer.

She used to hide things in here. She feels around to see if anything was left, and her fingers close on something small. She opens her hand and sees the pin her grandmother gave her once, a small enameled Tudor rose. She’d lost this after her grandmother’s funeral. Maybe she tucked it here for safekeeping.

She doesn’t have pockets for this dress and she didn’t bring a purse, so although the pin doesn’t go with her dress she pins it on. She doesn’t want to lose it again.

She doesn’t want to rejoin the party either. She sits on the windowseat and peers down. From this vantage point, she can still see the swirl of festivities and hear the laughter and the music. She’s spent many nights here looking down on what happened below.

What would it have been like, if she grew up here instead of between Manhattan and Connecticut? Would she have pursued psychology? Would she have met Mike? If she had met him, would they have had a relationship, or would all this have kept him away from the start?

He’s with someone else now. Nicky saw him kissing someone else. Who was it? She just--she can’t believe that. What is he doing?

If they hadn’t seen Sherri West that day, if she hadn’t found out he’d cheated on her, what would have happened? Would they have had the same argument, the same breakup in Bermuda? He used work as an excuse. If they hadn’t broken up, he would never have punched that councilman, and maybe… maybe they would have been engaged by the end of the trip. Or maybe it all would have ended anyway.

She hears footsteps in the hallway and freezes, feeling unaccountably as though she’s doing something wrong. She’s not, she reminds herself. This was her room. This house still belongs to her family. Still, her breath catches in her throat as the doorknob turns and the door eases open.

‘Sorry for disturbing you,’ the man says. ‘Janet saw a light on and wanted me to check to see if everything was all right.’

She clears her throat. ‘Everything’s fine.’

‘You’ve been crying--are you all right? Is there something I can do?’ He steps into the light and she looks up at him. He looks familiar, somehow--have they met before? Then she realizes what he’s said and she brushes her wrist across her eyes, feeling the tears there.

‘I’m fine,’ she says. ‘Thank you.’

‘Can I get you anything?’ he offers.

She shakes her head. ‘I’d just like some privacy, if you don’t mind.’

‘Of course,’ he says. ‘If you need anything, I’m Archie Newbold.’

Of course, she thinks to herself, surprised by how bitter she sounds. Janet knew she’d be here and sent the family-approved choice to come fetch her down. She nods to acknowledge his statement and then, after a moment, he nods back and leaves, closing the door behind him.

She closes her eyes when she hears his footsteps retreat. She still can’t believe that Mike is already seeing someone else. The thought that he could do that, after everything they shared… it sickens her. It makes her determined not to trust anyone like that again.

Love is sometimes not a choice. But trust--trusting someone is. How could she make that choice again when it’s been so betrayed?

She fingers the pin on her dress. Her grandparents had loved each other. Her parents did, too. Why was it so much to expect that she could find someone to love her, too?

She thought that he did. When they were in Ireland… she’s avoided thinking about that, but she can’t stop herself now. They’d promised to love each other forever. They’d promised to be true to each other. He’d already broken that vow and she didn’t know it and he’s done it again, too. My God, she thinks to herself, my God, all these promises… I thought he meant it, he wanted to make them, he looked happy…

He’d taken the claddagh ring he gave her from her jewelry box when he left. It was the ring that she wanted, and she’d wanted his love…

She rests her forehead against her knees and lets herself cry for a few minutes before getting a grip. She needs to wash her face and go back downstairs and find her friends. She wants to go back to Sally’s house and take a long bath and then crawl into her bed and close her eyes. She wipes away the tears once more and leaves the room.

She finds Jane downstairs, after she’s freshened up. The party has gained momentum, if anything, and she can spot Nicky chatting someone up in the corner and Sally waiting for drinks. She tells her friend that she’s going to take a cab back to Sally’s, and while Jane makes a token protest, she pleads a headache and escapes at last.

In the cab heading back to Sally’s, she closes her eyes and keeps them closed until they reach Centre Island and she has to navigate to Sally’s well-hidden house for the driver.

The house is quiet. Roger and Tim are out, as the other car’s gone from the driveway. She writes a note for Sally and one for Nicky, then goes to her room and goes to bed.

If she falls asleep crying, that’s no one’s business but her own.


	27. Brunch

He runs around Carl Schurz three times before he finally gets some of his anger out. He walks it once more, and by the time the sun is rising he feels ready to go back to his place. He stops at the bodega around the corner and buys two bouquets of flowers--one for Sherri, one for Katy. Then he heads home.

He’s been thinking a lot on this run. He’s decided he’s gonna stop being hung up on Liz Olivet. They had their turn, they made each other happy for a while, but that’s over now and it’s gonna stay that way.

He’s going to make more of an effort with Sherri. She’s a good person and she deserves a commitment, even if it’s only that they’re gonna be exclusive. They can talk about it later, but in the meantime, roses, so that she knows that he cares about her.

Despite himself, he does. She’s smart but she doesn’t make him feel dumb. She values his opinion. She obviously enjoys his company and he enjoys hers, too. He feels comfortable with her. He likes being with her. And if the sex isn’t as explosive as it was with Liz, it’s still great.

She isn’t awake yet when he gets back, so he puts the flowers in water and takes a shower. It’s a hot morning with the promise of a thunderstorm later. He’s starving and thirsty so he’ll make something for breakfast after he gets out.

He’s feeling nervous about brunch. He hopes to God that Katy and Pat don’t mention Liz, let alone Tommy. Oh, shit, Tommy. Has Katy told him he’s not gonna see Liz any more? How did it take it? She loved him and he loved her too, he was crazy about her.

Whatever, he thinks callously. It’s over. He’s gonna have to deal with it too, just like everyone else.

He drives down and as he does he’s hit with the memory of the first time he took Liz to meet his family. She’d been so nervous… she’d bought presents for his family, books for Tommy, Bushmills for Pat, and flowers for Katy. Sherri hadn’t thought of that, though she was glad he’d brought flowers.

It feels like an exercise in deja vu. They find parking on the same block as he and Liz did and they walk up to Katy and Pat’s building. Thank Christ they’re not in the same apartment, even if they’re on the same floor and in the same building. They moved to a three-bedroom just after Eileen was born.

When they page the apartment, the door buzzes open without any chit-chat and he guides Sherri to the elevator. She looks perfectly calm--he’s the one who’s a bundle of nerves. They step out onto Katy and Pat’s floor and head down the hall to their apartment. The door is closed, so he takes a deep breath and knocks. 

Pat opens the door. ‘Hello, hello!’ he says, his jovial tone holding a bit of tension. ‘Come on in.’

He and Pat don’t hug. He introduces Sherri, and she shakes his offered hand.

‘I’m on kitchen duty, Katy’s in the living room with Tommy, Eileen’s napping,’ he says. ‘Excuse me.’

He says to Sherri, ‘We might as well head back.’ She nods and he puts his hand on her lower back, guiding her to the living room.

Katy’s sitting on the floor with Tommy, playing with the train set Liz bought him for Thanksgiving one year. They both look up when they come in.

‘Hi, Katy, hi Tommy,’ he says. ‘This is Sherri. Sherri, this is my sister Katy and my nephew Tommy.’

Katy stands up and kisses him on the cheek, then shakes Sherri’s hand. ‘It’s nice to meet you. Can I get you somethin’ to drink?’

‘Water would be great, thanks,’ Sherri says politely.

‘Sure. Mike? A beer?’

He nods. ‘Thanks, Katy.’

‘Sit down, you two. I’ll be right there.’

Sherri takes the seat he indicates and he kneels next to Tommy. ‘Hey, buddy,’ he says. His nephew ignores him. He tries again. ‘Where’s the train going?’ Still nothing. He looks up at Sherri, who tries too.

‘Hi Tommy, I’m Sherri.’

He looks up at her, then at him, finally. ‘I hate you,’ he says. ‘I miss Auntie Liz!’ His voice rises to a scream and Katy comes rushing out of the kitchen, nearly spilling her tray of drinks. ‘I miss her and I hate you Uncle Mike!’ he yells again.

‘My God, Tommy, you’re gonna wake up your sister!’ Katy says, setting down the tray and kneeling next to her angry son. His heart is pounding with anger and surprise and he doesn’t dare look over at Sherri. ‘We talked about this, okay? Please behave or you’re gonna have to play in your room.’

Tommy crosses his arms over his chest and gives him such an evil glare that he’s literally stunned. ‘Fine. I want to play in my room.’

‘Okay, honey,’ Katy says, a bit too nicely in his opinion. Tommy knows better, he shouldn’t be behaving like this, and he was already obviously told that he and Liz split. ‘I’ll bring you somethin’ to eat when it’s ready.’

Tommy nods, accepts his mother’s hug, and runs down the hall to his room.

‘Sorry about that,’ Katy says, though he doesn’t think she sounds sorry. ‘Sherri, here’s your water; Mike, here’s your beer.’

He takes a welcome swig, and while Sherri and Katy become involved in the typical sort of getting-to-know-you conversation; how she and Mike met, how long they’ve been together, that sort of thing. With each answer Sherri gives--dropping him deeper into the shit, though she doesn’t know it--he sees Katy’s shoulders tense. When Sherri gets up to use the bathroom, Katy leans in to tear him apart.

‘Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me, Mike?’ she asks, her voice venomous. ‘What the hell are you doin’?’

‘Liz and I broke up a while ago,’ he tells her, hoping to stave off anything else. Katy simply raises an eyebrow. ‘It wasn’t gonna work, okay? It was never gonna be a long-term thing between us.’

‘Well, you could’ve fooled me,’ she snaps. ‘She was great for you. You were great together. And after everything you two went through…’

He swigs his beer. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

He feels her staring at him, but she looks away when both Pat and Sherri reappear.

Brunch is obviously tense. Sherri and Pat try to keep up a pleasant conversation, but he feels Katy staring at him every time he deigns to speak. She’s obviously, completely furious. He hadn’t thought he’d take Liz’s side in this. He probably should’ve predicted Tommy’s reaction. The only thing that’s going right about this brunch is that his dad isn’t here.

Katy “suggests” that he goes in to talk to Tommy to say goodbye. He has to agree--it’s not a suggestion, and he knows that she probably wants to say something to Sherri. Sherri smiles at him--she’s not unaware of the currents running beneath every word, but she doesn’t know how deep they go. He takes a deep breath and knocks on his nephew’s door, then opens it.

Tommy is sitting on his bed, writing something, and he looks up and glares at him as he steps into the room and closes the door.

‘Listen, Tommy, I wanted to talk,’ he says, forcing himself to stay calm. ‘I know that you’re upset that me and Liz split--’

‘Why? I thought you were gonna marry Auntie Liz,’ his nephew says, his anger giving way to sadness. ‘I love her.’

‘I know you do, Tommy. But Liz and I--it was never gonna work out. I’m sorry that it hurt you.’

‘It did,’ he says. ‘I thought you were gonna get married. I asked her that once and she said she wanted that. So why did you break up?’

‘I didn’t want to get married,’ he says. ‘It’s complicated.’

‘It’s stupid,’ he says, looking angry again and much older than seven. ‘I want to see her anyway.’

‘That’s not a good idea,’ he tells him. ‘She’s not gonna want to see you.’

‘That’s not true! She isn’t mean.’

‘Tommy, she’s not your aunt. She’s nothin’ to do with you, okay?’

‘Whatever,’ he says, crossing his arms. ‘Go away.’

He goes.

He and Sherri leave after that, saying goodbye and thanks to Katy and Pat. Pat gives him a reproachful look as they leave, and Katy barely bothers to say goodbye, just heads down the hallway to Tommy’s room. He lets out a deep sigh when they leave the building.

‘I don’t think Tommy was very happy with either of us,’ Sherri remarks as they walk to his car.

‘He’s upset with me,’ he says, hoping to ward off this discussion. 

‘When you told me he liked your ex, you weren’t joking,’ she presses on anyway.

‘Yeah, well, he wanted us to get married. He told me that she told him that she wanted to marry me.’

‘Wow,’ she says softly. ‘Okay.’

‘I told you that,’ he says, unable to keep the accusing edge from his voice.

‘Yeah, I know--it’s one thing hearing it from you, and another that she told someone else that’s what she wanted. How long were you guys together?’

‘A few years,’ he tells her again. ‘And we had a good time. It just--it felt more serious to her, I guess, than it did to me.’ They reach his car but make no effort to get in. ‘Look, we never moved in together, we weren’t engaged, we weren’t married. We didn’t have kids. We didn’t even really talk about getting married or having kids. So she was pretty delusional in regards to our relationship.’

‘Well, I want us to talk about our relationship,’ Sherri says. ‘I mean, we have for what’s between us now. But if things change… I want you to promise that we’ll talk about it.’

‘I promise,’ he says.

‘Okay,’ she replies. ‘Good.’

‘Good,’ he agrees. ‘Now, can we just head back uptown and get a drink somewhere?’

‘Good idea,’ she says, and smiles. He wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her to him for a kiss just as it starts to rain.


	28. x 3

She wakes up in the morning to the sound of rain pattering on the roof. It’s late, according to both the view from her window and the clock on her nightstand, which reads 8:32. She heard the rest of the house come home late--Nicky past two in the morning; Roger and Tim around midnight; Sally and Jane shortly after them.

She goes downstairs and quietly makes herself a cup of coffee, then brings it back upstairs and curls up in bed. It’s a chilly morning and a gloomy one, which matches her mood. At least this bed is comfortable. She’s stacked the fluffy pillows behind her back and drawn the duvet over her knees.

She has the feeling that most of the house will be hungover today. Perhaps she’ll borrow a car and drive into Locust Valley and browse the shops. There are some wonderful antique shops there, and perhaps she can find something for Miranda’s birthday.

But now…

They’re going back to Manhattan this afternoon, or at least she is. That was the plan for Nicky, Jane, and Roger too, though she’s unsure what train they’ll all take. She just wants to go home and be home, even though being in her apartment alone is difficult too.

Her apartment is large by Manhattan standards and before Mike it never seemed too big. But now… all those empty bedrooms… it just feels like so much space for one person, which it is, of course.

How can he already be with someone else? That just boggles the mind. She can’t even imagine going on a date with someone else right now, let alone sleeping with them… because she knows that if he hadn’t slept with whoever she is then, then he certainly has by now…

She’s so tired of explaining their breakup, too. Why can’t there just be someone who tells everyone who is remotely interested or involved in her life so that she doesn’t have to keep going over and over this? She can’t do that any more. And then people’s attempts at making her feel better… the thing is, she loves him. She doesn’t want to hear negative things about him even though so many of them are justified. She closes her eyes and takes a sip of coffee.

Last week she prayed she’d love him forever. That was a mistake. And now she needs to find a way to channel her love for him into something else, or make it go away, or just stop it from spilling over and making her a bitter, lonely woman.

It’s not so much the loss of love that will do that, she knows. It’s the betrayal of trust and yes, love, and the fact that she thought that he cared about her but she was so, so wrong…

 _Stop it!_ she orders herself. _Stop these morbid thoughts_. She’s thankfully saved by a knock at her door. She sets her coffee down and stands to open it.

Sally is standing there, looking exhausted and hungover. ‘Hi. So, I think the rest of us are all not in a state of… being able to function this morning. I just wanted to let you know that you’re free to use the car or whatever--we’ll be in bed nursing our hangovers. Jane wants to take the 3:30 train back. Does that work for you?’

‘Yes, thank you. Is there anything I can do?’ she offers.

Sally shakes her head. ‘We all just need coffee, and I’m already brewing that. The car keys are on the kitchen counter.’

‘Thank you. I think I might do some antique shopping. Miranda’s birthday is coming up.’

‘Great. We’ll leave here around 3. See you then.’ Sally disappears without another word, but she doesn’t take it personally--she’s always like this when she overindulges.

She doesn’t go back to bed--that would be counterproductive. She washes up and gets dressed instead, putting on the red and cream dress from brunch with a matching cream cardigan. She grabs her ancient linen Bermuda bag and goes downstairs to deposit her coffee cup and collect the car keys.

She drives through Mill Neck instead of Bayville to reach Locust Valley. She loves this drive, how it feels like the country instead of the middle of Long Island. She turns onto Ryefield Road from Feeks Lane and ends up in the center of the village. She finds some parking on the street and parks, then gets out of Sally’s station wagon to search for a present for Miranda.

She spends a pleasant morning browsing, greeting the familiar owners and shopkeepers. Some are friends of her family’s; some are familiar from years of being here and visiting these shops with her mother, Miranda, or her aunt.

She finds a beautiful silver Georgian sugar bowl and a matching cream pitcher that she thinks Miranda will like. She’s always a difficult person to buy for--she has everything she could ever want. But these are nice. She can fill the pitcher with flowers and the sugar bowl is a good catch-all. She pays for them and runs straight into someone on her way out.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says as strong hands clasp her upper arms. She looks up into the face of the man who came upstairs at her aunt’s house last night.

‘Hello,’ he says, pleased to see her. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry, I have to--’

‘Can I buy you a cup of coffee?’ he asks. ‘We’ve encountered each other twice now, I think that’s saying something--even in such a small town as this.’

‘I--I can’t, I’m sorry,’ she stumbles. ‘I have to head back to the city.’

‘At least can you tell me your name?’ he says, his smile warm.

‘Elizabeth,’ she says. ‘Elizabeth Olivet.’

‘Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Olivet. Maybe we’ll run into each other again.’ He steps aside and opens the door for her, smiling at her as she walks through it.

She doesn’t have time to think when she gets back to the house. Jane’s mother called saying that Carlotta has a fever so everyone decides to take an earlier train. She packs hastily and there’s just enough time for them to grab sandwiches at the Million Dollar Deli before boarding the train.

They find seats on the train. Jane is worried about Carlotta, as is Roger. Nicky is still hungover and making a big deal of it, saying that he wishes he had a little hair of the dog. She feels removed from them--it feels strange, as though she barely knows them. She’s caught up in her own personal things, she knows, but--

‘Third time’s the charm,’ she hears the now-familiar voice say, and looks up to see Archie. ‘If I’d known you’d be on this train, I would have offered you a ride.’

‘Well, we intended to take a later train,’ Nicky jumps in. ‘I suppose it’s good luck that we took this one. Liz, will you introduce us?’

‘This is Archie Newbold,’ she says, feeling herself blush as both Jane and Nicky nudge her knee. She catches Jane’s surreptitious thumbs-up. ‘This is Nick Smith and Jane and Roger Schoville.’

‘A pleasure to meet you.’

‘So, Archie, how do you and Liz know each other?’

‘We’ve run into each other a few times now,’ he replies easily. ‘And I believe we used to play together when we were small and you visited your grandparents. I grew up next door to Inis Fada.’

‘I remember,’ she says, because she does, suddenly, running through the lawns and splashing in the fountain at Archie’s parents’ house, playing croquet on the lawn… ‘You were the only child my age nearby.’

His smile is warm and very personal, directed only at her. ‘Yes, I enjoyed those times.’

She feels herself blushing.

‘Listen, we’ve got to try to get in touch with my mother,’ Jane interrupts, ‘So Archie, why don’t you take our seats? That way you can catch up.’

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I’d like that.’

‘And I’ve got to borrow Jane’s phone after, so I’ll see you in a while, Lilibet,’ Nicky says, before she can protest. He bends to kiss her cheek. ‘He’s hot!’ he whispers. ‘Go get him.’

And then they are alone. Archie takes Jane’s seat across from her and hands his ticket to the conductor, who has watched this exchange with interest.

‘So, Elizabeth,’ he says. ‘Can I buy you that cup of coffee when we get off the train? Or better yet, a cocktail?’

She opens her mouth to decline, then she remembers everything she’s learned this weekend. A cocktail isn’t a marriage proposal. It’s not even a date. She has to move on, and even if it’s not with Archie, she’s got to take that step forward, away from Mike. ‘I’d like that,’ she says at last. ‘Thank you.’

They go to Sant Ambroeus for a drink and some gelato. The latter reminds her of that first night with Mike, which she puts firmly out of her mind. She orders a glass of Sancerre and finally allows herself to study him.

He’s perhaps as different from Mike as anyone could be. Archie is tall, yes, but slim, with dark red hair and bright, laughing blue eyes. There’s none of the tension in him that is so ever-present in Mike. Archie is at peace with himself. And, she must admit, it’s refreshing.

He’s easy to talk to. They spent the entire train ride chatting easily about their work--Archie is an editor at Farrar, Strauss, and has worked with Audrey--and mutual friends, and their interests. He likes to ski and cook and sail, too, so they swap stories. He’s recently divorced and she confided a few details about her recent breakup.

As they finish their glasses of wine, he asks if she’d like another one. She declines politely.

‘I’ve enjoyed talking with you,’ she says carefully. ‘I just am not ready to date yet.’

‘I understand,’ he says. ‘If you change your mind… please let me know.’

‘Thank you,’ she says.

He pays the bill and they leave the restaurant together, though she declines his offer to walk her home. He leaves her with a simple ‘à bientôt, I hope.’

It’s been a strange day, she thinks as she finally unlocks the door to her apartment. A very strange day, and a strange weekend. She’s so glad to be home.

She is methodical when she comes back from a trip. She unpacks her bag, putting clothes to be cleaned in their proper place, unpacks her toiletries, then gets changed. Her answering machine light is flashing when she heads into the kitchen, so she pours herself a glass of water before pressing play.

There’s one message from Paul Robinette, asking her if she’ll work with the defense on a case he’s working on. She makes a note to call him back. There’s one from her mother, asking her to call when she gets home so she can hear about her weekend. Then, left early this afternoon, is one from Mike’s sister Katy.

‘Uh, hi, Liz. It’s Katy O’Connor. Listen--’ she pauses. ‘I’m sorry, I really don’t know how to say this. Uh, we heard that you and Mike split up. I’m so sorry--you two were great together.’ She pauses again. ‘Tommy is really missin’ you especially. Do you want to come over for dinner tomorrow? Just us. Give me a call back.’

The long beep signals the end of her messages.

Well, she thinks, surprised. Katy hadn’t reached out to her before, but maybe she just found out. And Tommy…

She has her own nephews--well, the children of her cousins--and Mike had other nieces and nephews, but Tommy… Tommy was special. She loved him. And the thought of never seeing him again… at least not without saying goodbye… before she knows it, she’s picked up the phone and dialled Katy’s number.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Katy, it’s Liz Olivet.’

‘Hi, Liz. Did you get my message?’

She suddenly finds it difficult to speak. ‘Uh, yes. I’d like to accept your invitation, if you don’t mind.’

‘Good,’ she says. ‘Great. Can you come over at 6:30? Is that too early?’

‘No, that’s fine. See you then.’

‘See you tomorrow.’

She hangs up. What is she doing? This is probably a bad idea, but she’s committed to it now. At least she can bring Tommy his birthday present. She sighs. It will be fine.


	29. The Poor Man's QEII

He wakes up before her alarm goes off and makes her breakfast. She is very appreciative--so much so that he burns the scrambled eggs as she thanks him. He’s in a good mood as she heads off to work, though it quickly turns sour when his sister calls.

‘I cannot fuckin’ believe you,’ she storms, barely waiting for him to say hello. ‘I didn’t want to go into it when the kids were in the next room, let alone the woman you brought with you, so I sent the kids out to play with the neighbors so I could call you. What the hell are you thinkin’?’

‘You of all people should know why it would never work with spoiled Princess Elizabeth,’ he snaps back. ‘Didn’t you tell me when we first got together that you didn’t think it would last?’

‘And then I corrected my opinion when I got to know her! She wasn’t like that at all, Mike. She’s a good person, a kind and generous person, and hell, maybe she should get her head examined for lovin’ you when you’re treatin’ her like shit, but Mike--! She loves you! How many times in your life have you felt someone love you?’

He’s furious at her bringing it up. ‘It’s none of your goddamn business, Katy.’

‘It sure is when you bring whoever you’re datin’ to my house! How long did you wait between dumpin’ Liz and pickin’ up Sherri? A whole twenty-four hours?’

That hurts--and even that is too kind. How long was it, ten hours?

‘You broke Tommy’s heart. He’s crazy about Liz.’

‘Oh, so I should have gone ahead and married her just because your son likes her?’

‘No, you should’ve married her because you like her! Because you’re in love with her! I didn’t think you were that big an idiot to pass up on someone who would make you happy!’

He doesn’t know what to say. ‘Katy--’

‘Make it up with her,’ she urges. ‘It’s not too late. Get down on your knees and beg her to forgive you and buy her an engagement ring and marry her and--prove to her that you love her, Mike. Do that, or I don’t know how you’re gonna go through the rest of your life knowin’ you fucked up the best thing you had goin’ for you.’

He hangs up and doesn’t pick up when she calls back immediately. Instead, he goes for yet another run.

At least this endless month of leave is finally almost over. He has to go down to Staten Island tomorrow and meet with the precinct and his new lieutenant. He’s completely dreading it. Next week starts the endless commutes, the long hours, the shitty shifts. At least the precinct is only a couple blocks from the ferry stop--he’s not gonna have to try to drive down every morning.

He gets his stuff ready for tomorrow. He might as well, he thinks. He has to get down there at 10, so he’ll leave with Sherri in the morning, get there early, scope it out, try to figure out the lay of the land.

He hates this. He’s gonna waste his career stuck out in the worst of the boroughs, New York’s garbage dump. He can’t fucking believe it. What a waste.

He’s run around this park so many times now that he’s in the best shape of his life and he’s bored with the scenery. He’d run around the reservoir in Central Park, but he’ll probably run into one of Liz’s people and he sure as hell doesn’t want that. At least if he stays over here, he won’t see anyone. Her people don’t go east of Park ever unless they’re going to Beekman Place and the River Club. He’s glad for the first time of their tightly prescribed little world--it means he’s not gonna be surprised by anyone again as long as he’s careful… and avoids the movie theatre where they go.

He finishes his run--five miles total--and heads back to his apartment to shower. He’s gonna cook Sherri a good meal tonight, so after he showers he’s gonna head to the grocery store, then start cooking.

He’s relaxed as he’s cooked, and now, putting the finishing touches on the coq au vin, he feels filled with anticipation and wellbeing. Part of that is from exercise, but the rest is from the soothing nature of cooking. The dish just has to simmer for another hour by the time she buzzes his apartment.

‘Something smells delicious,’ she says as he opens the door to her. She’s smiling too, looking relaxed after a long day at work. ‘Hi, honey.’ They kiss.

‘I made dinner,’ he explains. ‘Coq au vin. Can I get you a glass of wine?’

‘Mm, please,’ she agrees, stepping out of her heels. ‘It was a long day.’

‘Well, dinner will be ready in an hour,’ he tells her, guiding her over to the couch. ‘So let me get you some wine, and we can relax.’

She stretches out on the couch, grinning at him. ‘I’ve got you an early birthday present.’

He’s surprised and--he’ll admit it--touched. ‘You didn’t have to do that.’

‘Mm, I know, but I wanted to. I’ll trade you the present for a glass of wine.’

He grins, feeling like a kid again, eager for this present. He’d mentioned his birthday offhand a couple days ago, so he’s surprised that she remembered. He pours them both a glass of wine and brings them back to the living room. She hands him an envelope and then takes the glass of wine from his hands. He sets his down and opens the envelope.

He’s surprised by the contents--a membership to the boxing gym in the area and ten lessons. He looks up at her and quirks an eyebrow.

She’s unperturbed. ‘Well, you’ve been running so much you must be getting bored by now. I thought it might be fun for you to try something else. And this way you can improve your right hook. Knock the guy into last week next time.’

He laughs despite himself, despite her reference to the act that sentencing him to Staten Island. ‘I love it. You’re too good to me.’

‘Mm,’ she says, setting down her wine. ‘Well, you can make it up to me.’ She leans forward and takes hold of the front of his shirt, pulling him down to her.

It’s a good thing he set the kitchen timer, because they lose all track of time. They eat at the table in candlelight, then leave the dishes to soak as they continue their earlier activities. He sleeps well and, to his relief, the crushing dread of Staten Island isn’t too bad when they wake up in the morning.

They get ready for the work day together with some difficulty. Everything about his apartment is small--the bedroom, the bathroom, and the living room are all tiny, and there’s barely enough room for one person, let alone two trying to get ready. He gives up and lets her use the bedroom and bathroom while he dresses in the living room.

Finally they’re ready to go. She has to head down to Hogan Place this morning, so they can ride down together. He keeps going after she gets off the train, giving him a kiss as he goes.

‘See you tonight at my place,’ she promises. ‘Don’t forget, I left the spare keys on your coffee table.’

‘See you tonight,’ he says, and then she’s gone.

It feels so fucking weird riding the ferry out. ‘The poor man’s QEII,’ he’d told Liz once, when he said he’d take her out on the water in the early days of their relationship. She’d laughed and had gone along with him one night, to Staten Island and back. Dinner and a cruise, he remembers now, finding the spot where they’d leaned against the railing. He’d bought hot dogs from the concession stand on board and they’d brought beer and they’d had a great night. Why couldn’t it always be that simple with her?

He looks back at the city as the ferry pulls away. This sucks.

He’s a half hour early by the time he gets to the Island. The precinct is only a few blocks away, so he walks, making sure to go around the block to check it out from all angles. It looks quiet. Well, yeah, he thinks. It’s sure as hell not Manhattan. Maybe that boxing gym membership will come into good use, get his frustration out there. Just like Spenser in those books. He’ll go this afternoon, he decides.

It was a thoughtful gift, which kind of surprises him. He doesn’t know why--it’s not like Liz had the monopoly on thoughtfulness. But Sherri obviously took some time to think about it. He’s lucky to have her in his life.

He checks his watch. He’s gotta head in. He might as well get there a little early, make a good impression… or at least try not to make a bad one. He’s already coming in with a reputation. If he tones down his… natural charm, then maybe he won’t get stuck here for too long.

Five minutes into his meeting with his new Lieutenant, Stopler, he’s wishing he had learned meditation like Liz urged him to for years. He’d asked her once how she could stay so calm and dispassionate dealing with all this shit all those years ago and she explained how she practiced meditation, deliberately cultivating a way to step back. 

‘...start you off with domestics.’

He’s startled out of his thoughts. Domestics? What the fuck? ‘I’m a Homicide cop,’ he says, fighting to keep his cool.

‘Maybe in Manhattan. Not here. We’re gonna partner you up with Gerber. Maybe he can help straighten you out.’

He bites the inside of his cheek so hard he almost draws blood. He stares at Stolper, forcing himself to control his temper. _Don’t fuck it up_ , he tells himself.

‘Well, let’s introduce you to your new partner,’ he says. ‘Gerber can give you a tour, introduce you. Let’s hope you and I don’t get a chance to know each other well.’

Stopler levers himself up and heads to the door. He follows a few beats later. The lieutenant throws open his office door. ‘Gerber!’ he barks. ‘Come show Logan around.’

Gerber reminds him of Profaci, if Profaci was twenty pounds heavier and a stickler for doing things by the book. This guy--his new partner--obviously has no sense of humor.

They do the tour of the precinct--where to find the coffee, where his desk is gonna be--then they go through the standard order of operations on a domestic call. He fucking hates domestic calls. He did enough of them when he walked a beat, but they chilled him to the bone every time. Maybe it’s a relic of his childhood, maybe it’s his mostly unacknowledged fear that that would one day be him in the future, but he tries to stay away. Now he can’t.

Finally they do introductions. He pays particular attention to the few Homicide cops on duty. If he makes friends with them, maybe at least he’ll be able to work on a few cases. But they’re all made of the same mold of Homicide cops in Manhattan--he’s not gonna get in that easy.

When the tour is over--and it’s not much, though he’ll admit the view of the water from his new desk is better than the view from his old one--he heads out. The weather is looking like it’ll storm, so he hurries to the ferry terminal. He doesn’t have to wait long for the ferry, and then, thank Christ, he heads back to Manhattan.

He does go to the boxing gym. He’s never done this before--sure, he’s had his share of fights, especially growing up, but taking a lesson… he’s not one to take lessons, but after watching a couple fights he decides to go for it. Why not?

There’s a lot of repetition at first. The same punch, over and over again, then another punch, over and over again. By the end of the hour, though, he’s wiped, but he’s won some praise out of Eddie. And, more than that, he feels good. Like he’s accomplished something. It’s the best he’s felt since all this went down.

With that thought, they set up another lesson for tomorrow morning. He heads back to his place to shower, then heads over to Sherri’s place to wait for her.


	30. Tightrope

It's her precinct day, usually, but nothing is happening at the 2-7 and she's glad of that. It was impossible being there without him, and with this new knowledge... she needs a little distance. 

She goes into her office and works on paperwork, catching up on what she missed while in Bermuda and even getting a bit ahead of things too. She pauses to stretch and eat the sandwich she made at home when her phone rings. It's Olivia Benson from SVU and she needs her presence urgently. 

'A six year old girl,' Olivia explains. 'We think her uncle's been abusing her. Can you come now, Liz?'

'I'm on my way,' she promises. She finishes her sandwich quickly, locks up her paperwork and her office, and heads to the subway. 

Children being abused... working with SVU breaks her heart, although there is a need for her there, more than at the 2-7 or Major Case. A need for compassionate therapists... therapists who will listen and not simply prescribe medication. 

She's been focusing more on children's psychology in the past two years. She's taken seminars at Columbia and NYU, read the research, and now has several private patients who are children. And learning more about children... she thought that would help when she had her own, so that she could be a better mother... 

Her stop arrives and she gets off the subway, walking up the flights of stairs. She's glad she didn't wear heels today and glad that she brought Tommy's present with her in her purse. She probably wouldn't have time to go back and fetch it. She emerges into the humid summer afternoon and makes her way to SVU. 

Olivia is waiting for her and gives her the brief as she leads her into the interview room. The girl, Abby, is six years old and her first-grade teacher called SVU after noticing bleeding. Her stomach turns over--still, after all these years, she cannot begin to fathom how people can hurt others like that. The girl lives with her unmarried uncle; her parents are both deceased. 

They pause outside the interview room. The girl is inside, a small child for her age, her limp blonde hair tucked behind her ears. There are drawing materials in front of her, but they are unused. Her gaze is fixed on the table, but when Olivia knocks on the door, then opens it, she is sitting bolt upright. 

'Hi, Abby,' Olivia says gently. 'This is Dr. Olivet. She'd like to talk a bit with you, if that's all right.'

Abby meets her gaze and her appraisal is far too old for someone of her years. She nods slowly. 

'I'll leave you two to chat,' Olivia says, and she takes a seat next to Abby. 

'I'm Dr. Olivet,' she says. 'Or you can call me Dr. Liz, whatever you'd like.' Abby nods. 'Would you like to draw a bit?' Abby nods again and picks up a crayon. 

She guides her through some basic exercises--draw your favorite place, draw you, draw your family. As Abby draws, she begins to open up a little, and it's clear by the end of the interview that someone--likely the uncle--has been abusing her. She'll have to interview him, then Abby again.

She's sharing her verbal report to Olivia when Sherri walks in. Her heart stops and her voice falters and it takes every ounce of strength to keep going, especially when Sherri comes over to them. 

'Dr. Olivet,' she says. 'You interviewed Abby? Do you think we have a case?'

She repeats what she told Olivia, that she will need to speak with the uncle and Abby again, but it looks as though Abby has been abused. 

'Can we bring him in? Charge him?' Olivia asks Sherri. They debate about it for some time before they agree on what should happen next. Olivia says goodbye and goes to collect Elliott, leaving her with Sherri. 

'Please have Olivia call me when she's ready for me to interview Abby again,' she says. 

'Actually, Dr. Olivet, I wondered if I could speak with you in private.'

Her heart is racing, but she nods and lets Sherri lead her into a conference room. She takes a seat and Sherri closes the door behind them. 

'I had something of a personal nature to ask you about,' she begins, looking awkward. 'I started a relationship with someone recently, a few weeks ago, and--well, we've known each other for some time, but his behavior has changed in the time we've been together. He's going through some... professional difficulties, and I know he'd never want to speak with someone about it. I suppose I was wondering if you could share some coping mechanisms that I could pass along to him?'

'I can't prescribe any methods without meeting your boyfriend,' she says, her heart rate slowing as she realizes it's not about her or Mike. 'I can only deal in generalities. But if you could explain some of the things he's been going through...?'

Sherri thinks, then says slowly, 'He had a childhood trauma made public in a very distressing way. Also, he was forced to admit he had been... less than fair in his job, using slurs against a group of people, and then he did something violent to the person who prompted this being made public.'

'Has he been violent to you?'

'No, of course not,' she says emphatically. 'He's very gentle with me. But his temper has been very short with other people, including his family, and he's starting a new job soon, so... I want him to do well. I don't want him to start off on the wrong foot.'

'I can understand that. Well, I would recommend meditation. It takes some time, but being able to sink into a meditative state at will has helped me to keep my... equanimity when working for the city. It's not a way to relieve anger, but a way to control it until there is a more appropriate time and outlet. As for a more immediate way of relieving his temper, physical exercise. Perhaps boxing.'

'That's a great idea,' Sherri says with relief. 'And there's a boxing gym near his apartment. I'll sign him up. Could you recommend some meditation exercises?'

'Yes,' she agrees. 'I have some in my office. I'll bring them by here tomorrow.' She checks her watch--it's five thirty, she has to go. She still has things to get before going to dinner. 'I'm sorry, I have to be on my way.' She gathers her things together and Sherri stands up when she does. 

'Thank you so much for your help, Dr. Olivet,' she says. 'I look forward to reviewing those exercises.'

She nods. 'Have a good day.'

'You too.'

She stops by a liquor store near the precinct for the traditional bottle of Bushmills for Pat, then finds some flowers from a florist a few blocks away. She has a new book for Eileen already, and, laden with presents, she hails a cab to take her to Katy and Pat’s.

As they drive downtown, she closes her eyes. This will probably be the last time that she sees them. Whatever Katy’s motivations for inviting her to dinner… she can’t imagine that it will be repeated. Mike is dating someone else now, whoever she is… so she’s come bearing goodbye gifts, and she prepares herself to bid farewell to her friends. 

It feels so strange, she thinks. She’d thought they would be her family. She shared so much with them. She loves them. And now… 

The cab draws up near Katy and Pat’s building. She pays and tips the driver, then gets out, carrying her purchases. To her surprise and delight, Tommy and Katy are waiting for her outside their building. Tommy runs full-tilt towards her, nearly knocking her presents out of her hands. She sets her things down and holds him tight.

‘I knew you’d come!’ he says, his voice muffled against her. ‘I missed you, Auntie Liz.’

‘Oh, sweetheart, I missed you too,’ she says, because she has. When was the last time she saw him? More than a month ago, she realizes. She drops a kiss on the top of Tommy’s head. ‘How are you?’

He pulls back to look at her. ‘Okay,’ he says edgily. ‘Starving. Let’s eat.’

‘Why don’t you go ahead, sweetheart? Liz and I will follow you. Tell Dad we’ll be up in a minute.’

‘Okay,’ he says reluctantly, then pulls away from her and runs into the building.

She and Katy look at each other. Katy breaks the silence first. ‘Thank you for coming.’

‘Thank you for having me.’

Katy runs her hand over her eyes just like her brother does. The familiar gesture sets her heart pounding. ‘Mike was over here yesterday,’ she says. ‘And he said you guys split because he didn’t want to get married.’

She nods slowly. ‘Yes. That’s what happened.’ Katy looks at her, expecting more, and she begins, faltering, ‘I told him that if he didn’t want to get married… that we could just have children. I want children. And when he said he wanted to hold off on children for a while, while he gets settled in his new job… I said that I wanted us to move in together. Officially. We could find a place together in the Village so it would be better for his new commute. But he said--’ She can’t say it. It surprises her that she’s confided this much. For such a private person, she thinks wryly, you’ve become quite a blabbermouth.

Katy says, softly, ‘God, Liz. I’m so sorry.’

She swallows back her tears. ‘As am I. I thought… I thought things would be different.’

‘Me too,’ Katy admits.

They fall silent. She says, eventually, ‘I suppose this will be my last visit. I don’t want to put you in an awkward position.’

‘Liz--’

‘No, I know,’ she says. ‘I understand.’

‘I don’t want that, Liz, you know that. We’re friends.’

‘But he’s your brother,’ she reminds Katy. After a long pause, she says, ‘I brought Tommy’s birthday present, and a little something for Eileen. And things for you and Pat, too.’

‘You didn’t have to do that,’ Katy says. She ignores her and gives her the flowers. ‘Thank you.’

She smiles, even though she feels it tremble. ‘I could really do with a drink.’

‘Me too,’ Katy says, and puts her arm around her shoulders. They walk into the building together.

Dinner is delicious, as it always is--roast chicken, potatoes, a salad, and a tomato tart. Tommy sits next to her at the table. Eileen is asleep, and Tommy is tired too. When they retire to the living room for dessert, he falls asleep on the sofa, his head resting in her lap.

She wants to cry. She won’t get a chance to say a proper goodbye to him, though perhaps that’s for the best. She strokes his hair and when Pat says he’ll bring Tommy to his room, she has to give him up without a qualm.

The entire night she and Katy and Pat skirt around the missing person in the room, but when Pat is putting Tommy to bed, Katy leans forward and says, ‘If he came to you--if he told you he made a mistake, and apologized--would you take him back?’

She says, ‘I still love him. I’ll never stop.’

It’s not an answer to her question, not really, but Katy nods anyway.

When Pat returns, she excuses herself. She’s got to go home. She can’t do this any more. Besides, tomorrow afternoon she has to head down to SVU, so she’ll need to go to her office early and prepare. They understand.

‘Goodbye,’ she says when they walk her to the door. ‘Thank you. If there’s anything I can do, ever… and please tell Tommy I said goodbye.’

They both hug her extra tightly and she hugs back just as tightly. Pat offers to get her a cab, but she shakes her head.

It’s a hot evening and by the time she gets a cab, almost ten blocks away, she’s drenched in sweat. She relaxes in the backseat of the cab, thankfully air conditioned, and closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to think about tonight. She doesn’t want to mourn the loss of her friends today, not yet. Later.

And tomorrow… she has one appointment in the morning, then back to SVU. That poor little girl… she would do a lot to help her and she hopes that she can--and at least she hopes that she can help her get justice.

She wants to get away this weekend. Be by herself somewhere… but she also wants to be with her parents, with her mother… she wants to let her mother coddle her, and soothe her, and she wants to cry and just be taken care of… 

She’s been through a lot. She’s been through too much these past few weeks. Her parents are in the Hamptons right now, but if she called her mother she knows that she’d come back right away.

Maybe she should call her mother--have some time, just the two of them. But no. Her rule was seeing friends or family once a week, and tonight was that, so she won’t. She needs to stick to the rules she’s created. Maybe she’ll join her family in the Hamptons this weekend. Or maybe she’ll go up to Southerly and be by herself. She doesn’t know. She’ll think about it tomorrow.

She feels herself settle into the routine of her work. Updating patient files, seeing patients, reports for the precincts and D.A.’s office. She schedules a meeting with Paul for the following day. She prepares the meditation exercises for Ms. West. She has a quick sandwich and goes down to SVU.

She’s relieved that Sherri isn’t there. She briefs the SVU team and Oliva tells her that the uncle will be here any minute. She nods tightly--this is the part of her job she hates.

She takes a few minutes to herself to prepare once the uncle is brought in. She meditates and organizes her mind, making sure to compartmentalize anything that will cause her distress. Only then does she enter the interrogation room.

By the time she emerges she is sickened, violently so, and it takes every iota of strength to make it to the bathroom before she vomits up her lunch. She’s only interviewed a handful of pedophiles, but this… with the incest component… she vomits again. Even after she straightens up, trembling, she feels ill. She washes her hands and face, then goes to give her report.

‘He’s certainly not a first-time offender,’ she tells Olivia and Elliott. ‘And I’d say his molestation of his niece has been going on for quite some time. It may have--escalated--recently, but this is not the start of it.’

‘Okay,’ Elliott says. ‘Let’s book him.’ He stands up from his desk and strides into the interrogation room. She moves to get up as well, but Olivia stops her.

‘You okay?’ she asks.

She nods, although she’s not. ‘Some cases, you know…’ 

‘I know,’ Olivia says. ‘Believe me. Need anything?’

‘Just get the bastard,’ she says, surprising herself with her words and their unaccustomed force.

‘We will,’ Olivia promises, a quirk of her eyebrow showing her own surprise at her response.

‘Good. Call me if you need me.’

Olivia nods. ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘Good luck,’ she says, and heads out, dropping the folder with meditation exercises in Ms. West’s pigeonhole as she leaves.


	31. Don't let the past remind us of what we are not now

He wakes up bright and early on the morning of his birthday. It’s a Saturday this year and he’s glad of it. That means he and Sherri can celebrate together. He’s got tickets to the Yankees game--a gift from someone he’s not going to think about any more, given early so that he knew not to make plans--and they’re going out to breakfast… after something else.

She’s still asleep, but she wakes up easily when he reaches out for her. She’s very responsive, he thinks, pulling back the covers. He loves that about her. And she’s pretty good at _that_ , too, he thinks, as she straddles him, grinning down at him. He lets her push him so that he’s lying back on the bed, and she leans forward, bending so that her long blonde hair brushes the side of his face.

‘Should I do a Marilyn Monroe and sing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President”?’ she asks him, teasing. ‘Or would you be okay with just…’ she lowers her hand and chuckles at his response.

‘Don’t stop,’ he tells her. ‘Don’t stop.’

He feels good, physically, for the first time in a long time. Going to the boxing gym has been great. After the first few days of muscle soreness, he’s feeling like he’s actually making progress, and this morning’s nice little wake-up call was great too. He’s flipping through channels while she finishes getting dressed. They’ll head over to Sarabeth’s for breakfast--her idea, and he’s okay with that--and then come back here before getting ready to head over to Yankee Stadium. The Yankees are playing the Rangers today, so they have a nice little rivalry going. Sherri has already declared her intention for rooting for her home team, even producing a Rangers cap.

She’s finally ready. She’s looking very nice in a red sundress and he’s glad now that he’s wearing slacks with a nice shirt, the sleeves rolled up. She says appreciatively, ‘You look very handsome.’

‘And you look gorgeous,’ he tells her. ‘Ready?’

‘I’m ready,’ she agrees.

They stroll over to Sarabeth’s, only a few blocks from his place. It is west of Third Avenue, so he was a little leery of heading over, into her territory, but it’s the weekend and he’s never known anyone she knows to stay in town on a summer weekend. And anyway, Sherri’s made a reservation. They get a great table in the window. He’s starving, so after they order drinks--she gets a mimosa, he gets a Bloody Mary, heavy on the vodka--he tries to decide what to get. He settles on waffles with bacon and an extra side of sausage. She laughs.

‘I know you’re starving--get something else if you’d like. My treat.’

So he orders French toast, too, when the waiter comes to take their order.

Sherri asks him how his boxing lessons are going and he shares enthusiastically. He really didn’t think he’d like taking lessons, but it’s been great to learn something from the beginning and learn it right.

Their food arrives and they dig in. It’s definitely a treat to not have to cook or do the dishes, and the food is great, especially the jams and stuff they make. He slathers some on his waffles.

‘Do you want to drive or take the subway?’ she asks him.

‘Subway,’ he says, swallowing a mouthful of French toast. ‘I’ll be nice to have a beer or two at the game.’

‘I agree,’ she says.

To his relief, they make it through brunch without seeing anyone he doesn’t want to, and after she pays the bill they head back to his place. They have to change before the game, and they do, then take the subway up.

The stadium is packed and it’s gonna be a good game, he can tell from the excitement in the air. They get a few chuckles thanks to her Rangers hat and his Yankees one, especially once they take their seats--really good ones behind the dugouts. He didn’t realize that. Sherri is impressed.

‘A gift from my old partner,’ he lies. ‘Lennie always knows how to get good seats.’

‘Well, please thank him for me,’ she says, settling back against the seat, his arm around her shoulders.

They are really nice seats, he thinks guiltily. They don’t even have to stand in line to get food or beer--someone comes to take their order. But then the National Anthem starts to play and then the game begins.

The Yankees are up when the ref calls a time-out and music plays. The jumbotron lights up and the camera scans the crowd.

‘I love these,’ Sherri says, tugging his arm. He looks down at her for a minute--she’s smiling, presumably at the couple on the screen. He looks up. It’s an elderly couple, both wearing Yankees gear, and they smile and wave before kissing. Next is a teenage couple, who engage in a long bout of French kissing. Cheers and wolf-whistles erupt, and the camera moves to someone else… them.

Sherri laughs in delight he guesses, and squeezes his arm. He feels frozen, but he forces himself to smile and turn to her, bending to kiss her. Cheers go up and the announcer says, ‘Now that’s a nice example of rival teams making up with a kiss.’

Sherri pulls back and laughs, then kisses his nose and waves to the camera. He forces another smile and then, thank Christ, the camera moves away from them.

‘I can’t believe it!’ she says, thrilled. ‘That was so cool!’

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I can’t believe it either.’

The game is spoiled for him and they still have a lot left. He tries to keep his mood up, but he’s worried that someone saw it, and worried that it’ll start the whole thing all over again, the accusing phonecalls, trying to deal with his actions…

When the game ends, they file out with the rest of the crowd. It’s a Yankees victory, so he should be in a better mood--even though her team lost, Sherri is obviously feeling good and very affectionate. She sits snuggled close to him, and when they get back to his place she’s the one who takes the lead.

‘Do you remember this?’ Liz asks him, straddling him. He’s sitting up in her bed, leaning back against the headboard, and while they’re both still dressed he knows they won’t be for long. ‘How much you enjoyed this?’ she continues, slipping one hand beneath his tshirt. He wants to grab her hips and pull her towards him, but he can’t move.

She smiles at him, then removes her hand. She’s wearing one of her nightgowns, the one that he likes the best--black silk and lace and barely any of either. He watches as she trails her fingertips along her collarbone. ‘You like to watch, don’t you?’ She lowers one strap of her nightgown, letting it slip down her smooth shoulder. She smiles again. ‘Yes,’ she tells him. ‘I know you do.’

He still can’t reach out to her. She lowers the other strap and the nightgown barely stays in place. ‘Maybe I should just take this off,’ she muses, her eyes never leaving his. ‘Would you like that?’

‘Yes!’ he tries to say. He can’t speak, but apparently she sees his answer, because she grins and pulls the nightgown over her head.

‘Mm,’ she tells him. ‘That’s better, isn’t it? And now…’ she lowers her hand, touching him again. She knows exactly what she’s doing, she always has, even from the first, and they’ve been together for so long now…

She lets go of him. ‘Not yet,’ she says, her eyes dark. ‘I think you deserve to be punished a bit. I think you have to watch.’

He does, breathless, as she slowly removes her underwear and traces a caress down her body, lower, lower… she’s done this before, at his instigation, and he’d loved to watch her, loved seeing her like this…

Her head drops back and her breath is coming in gasps now. ‘I think,’ she says, then moans. ‘I think you need to watch and think about what you’ve done. Oh--’

He can’t wait, and even though he can’t reach out and touch her, he can somehow touch himself. He does, watching her, needing her, desperate for her…

He opens his eyes. He’s alone. ‘Fuck,’ he says, angry with himself for acting like a teenager. What the hell is wrong with him? At least Sherri isn’t here--she got called into the office after the game and said she’d spend the night at her place. He leans over and turns on the light, then gets out, stripping the bed with force. He throws his sheets in his hamper, then showers.

 _What the fuck is wrong with you?_ he asks himself. _Jesus Christ, you have a girlfriend, you had sex with her twice today, and the last thing you need is to have a dream like that about your ex! Thank Christ Sherri isn’t here, you’d have a hard time explaining that one._

He flips off the shower and gets out, wrapping a towel around his waist. Jesus fuck, that dream felt so real. She looked stunning and undeniably hot, not that he’s ever denied that. She was always sexy, even the first time they met, when she looked so prim and proper in her little skirt suits…

Stop thinking about her! he thinks, feeling himself start to respond to that memory. He heads back into his bedroom and opens the closet door, yanking a clean set of sheets from the top shelf. They knock the box of photographs over and he watches them fall in slow motion, the box landing upside down and the photographs spilling out beneath it.

‘Fuck,’ he says again. Now he’s gotta clean those up too, and he knows that he’s gonna look through them… but he wants to do that. He wants to go through those photographs and remember happier times, better times. And he’s always loved looking at her… she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, let alone been with.

He makes the bed in a rush, then grabs the photographs, tossing them onto the clean sheets. There’s a pile of them, and he brings the box as well, then looks through them as he puts them away.

Liz on the porch railing at the Hamptons house. Liz on the _Selkie_ , her legs hanging off the side, her gaze fixed on the horizon. Liz reading in the hammock at Southerly. In Maine, posing victoriously on the top of Cadillac Mountain when they hiked up to watch the sunrise last summer. The two of them, the second of his birthdays that they spent together, his arms around her waist and her back leaning against his chest on the porch swing at the beach house. Touch football on the Fourth of July--he’s lifting her in his arms and her legs are in the air, her hands are clutching the football to her chest and she is laughing.

They laughed a lot together. It surprised him from the beginning, how different she was than she originally appeared to him. She was funny and playful and yes, smart as hell and professional but she was different with him, away from work.

She was a deeply nurturing person. She cared about the little things and made life easy. He could wake up in the middle of the night, thirsty, and there’d be that carafe of water on his nightstand, filled with fresh water and a slice of lemon, and that was just one of the small ways in which she made his life infinitely better.

How could he not want that to continue forever? How could he not want to love and cherish her and live with her and build their life together? How could he provoke her into breaking up with him and how could he just… pick things up with Sherri like what he had with Liz didn’t mean anything?

That last morning they had together, he’d come out to have breakfast with her on the patio and she’d already made his coffee for him. It was the perfect temperature and had the perfect amount of milk and sugar and--and he couldn’t even tell her that he loved her when she was begging him to say it. He left her in the middle of nowhere and then just packed up his things and went back here without even leaving her a note telling her he was sorry or that he loved her.

She’s gotta know that, right? That he loves her? No, he tells himself. Not the way you treated her.

Before he knows what he’s doing, he leans over and picks up the phone, dialing her familiar number. She’ll be there, he knows, and when she picks up he’ll apologize and tell her that he has to talk to her, and he’ll go to her apartment and he’ll get down on his knees and beg her for her forgiveness and ask her to marry him.

The phone finally picks up. ‘Hello, this is Elizabeth.’

‘Lizzie, it’s me--’ he says, but he’s interrupted by, ‘I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message and I will get back to you.’

He slams the phone down before the answering machine beeps. ‘What the fuck are you doin’?’ he asks himself. ‘Jesus. Get a grip.’

He gathers up the photographs and shoves them back in the box, not caring if they get bent or creased. He slams the lid back on and pushes the box of photographs as far back as they will go on the top shelf of his closet, then goes back to bed.


	32. Down but never out

On Friday afternoon, she calls her mother.

She’s been playing phone tag with her--deliberately on her end--but after another round of interviews with SVU, and meeting with Paul Robinette to discuss his client, a battered wife who killed her husband, and then her work at the 2-7 and District Attorney’s office… she’s overwhelmed.

That’s hard for her to admit. She prides herself on taking everything, even the darkest things, in stride, but--she can’t. Not right now, not with everything.

Her parents are in Southampton with Peter and Miranda. They spend most of the summer out East, they have ever since Peter and Miranda bought the house on Gin Lane. The only times they really decamp to Connecticut between Memorial Day and Labor Day is when renovations run over their scheduled timeline. Southerly is for the rest of the year.

But right now she doesn’t want the beach house. She doesn’t want to be inundated with guests and her family and just… everything, the wall of pictures going up the stairs, the memory of lying in bed with him, when he asked her if she wanted children. And her cousins will be there, her cousins, happy families, all of them married now except for Charlie, who is getting married this August. How can she face that?

So she calls her mother. She picks up on the second ring--she and her father have their own telephone line at the beach house--and when she hears her mother’s voice she starts to cry. She can’t help it. She cries for a long, long time, holding the phone to her ear, doubled up in pain.

As she begins to emerge from her storm of weeping, she finds herself growing embarrassed. She doesn’t do this. She doesn’t cry like this.

Her mother is saying, ‘Daddy’s booked me on a helicopter, darling, so I’ll be leaving in half an hour and I’ll be with you in about an hour and a half, all right? I’ll be there as long as you need me.’

‘Okay,’ she manages to say. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you too, sweetheart, and Daddy does too. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’

‘Okay,’ she says, and hangs up.

She goes into her bathroom to wash her face. She avoids looking at herself in the mirror--she can’t imagine how awful she looks. She is exhausted from crying and she feels strangely empty except for the sadness she still feels, the weight of it feels like it’s crushing her. She feels herself start to cry again and this time she sits down on the floor and curls up into a ball and sobs.

She manages to get herself together enough to change out of her work clothes, wash her face again, and make up the guest room bed. By the time her mother unlocks the door, she is holding it together… barely. She meets her at the front door.

‘Darling,’ her mother says, embracing her before she can set down her purse or do anything but close the door. ‘Oh, my Lilibet…’

That sets her off again, but Mummy is here, holding her, rubbing her back, stroking her hair, whispering soothing words.

‘All right, sweetheart, here’s what we’re going to do,’ Mummy says, taking charge. ‘You’re going to pack whatever you need and we’re going to go home right now, all right? Just you and me, as long as you want to be there, and Nina will be there to make you whatever you want to eat… all right? So let’s pack now. Ronnie is downstairs and he’ll drive us.’

She nods, pulling back from her mother. ‘I’ll be ready in a few minutes.’

‘Okay, sweetheart,’ her mother says. ‘What do you want for dinner? I’ll call Nina.’

‘Anything,’ she says, brushing tears away. ‘I don’t care.’

‘Okay,’ her mother says.

She finds her way into her bedroom because that’s all she can do. She puts some of her things together. She has almost everything she’ll need at Southerly. She is caught up on her paperwork--ahead of it--so she leaves that here. All she really packs are a few books, the needlepoint pillow she’s working on, and her journal. Then she’s ready to go.

They don’t talk on the drive up to Southerly. Ronnie seems to know that she doesn’t want any conversation, either, though Miranda and Peter’s driver is chatty, interested, and kind. He keeps the window up between the backseat and the front. Her mother holds her hand.

When they reach the road for Contentment Island, Mummy says, ‘When we get to the house, I’m going to make you a nice hot bubble bath, and bring you a glass of wine, and then when you’re ready to get out we’ll sit on the porch with another glass of wine and talk, or not talk… whatever you feel like. Does that sound all right?’

She nods. If she speaks, she’ll start crying again.

‘Good,’ her mother says soothingly. They turn into the driveway and there is the house, her beloved home. ‘Let’s go.’

They thank Ronnie as they get out of the car and are greeted by Nina, who takes one look at her and embraces her. 

‘I’m going to make you something to eat,’ she says, guiding her into the house. ‘Something delicious.’

Her mother goes upstairs and she hears her getting her bath ready.

‘What would you like?’ Nina asks. ‘Are you hungry, or just want something to snack on?’

She shrugs; she can’t speak.

Nina nods. ‘I’ll make you a little of everything, all right, darling?’

She nods again and her mother comes down the stairs.

‘All right, Lilibet,’ Mummy says. ‘Your bath is running. Now, let’s get you unpacked and a glass of wine and then I’ll let you have a nice long soak.’

It’s a relief to let someone else be in charge, to abdicate any decision-making and just do what she’s told to do. Her mother brings her upstairs and takes her bag, unpacking it, while she goes into the bathroom. The bath is the perfect temperature and has lots of bubbles, and after she gets in, her mother brings her a glass of Sancerre. She takes a sip of wine and leans back in the bathtub.

She doesn’t think--consciously, at least. She lets herself drift, lets the rose-scented bath and the wine soothe her. She is so tired, she thinks. She hasn’t been sleeping well. She hasn’t been eating much either. She is just so tired.

It’s hard to deal with this, the breakup, the forced readjustment of everything she thought would happen, and then work, all the horrible things in the world that she has to deal with, and analyse, and study… 

She can hear her mother in her bedroom, tidying things, unpacking things, probably setting something out for her to wear. It’s different here. Nothing evil has ever touched this place. It’s a refuge.

The water is getting cold. She’s barely drunk her wine, but that’s all right--she can finish it later. She sets the glass down and leans forward to pull the plug before getting out and drying off, then wrapping herself in her big fluffy robe.

Her mother is sitting on her bed when she gets out, still in the clothes she was wearing earlier, her own glass of wine on her nightstand. She’s gazing out the open window, her hands folded neatly in her lap. She turns to look at her when she enters her bedroom and her mother summons up a smile.

‘I wasn’t sure what you’d want to wear,’ her mother says. ‘It’s still so hot.’

She sits down next to her on the bed. ‘I don’t know.’

Mummy rests her hand on her clasped ones. ‘Do you want to talk, Lilibet, or not yet?’

‘Not yet,’ she replies.

‘All right,’ Mummy replies. ‘That’s fine, darling. Do you want to stay up here or sit on the back porch? Nina’s whipped up a bunch of your favorite things.’

‘Let’s go downstairs,’ she says. ‘I’ll get dressed. Why don’t you change, too?’

‘All right,’ her mother agrees. ‘I’ll meet you downstairs.’

She waits until she hears her mother’s bedroom door close before she goes through her dresser to find something to wear. She doesn’t want to wear one of the sundresses in her closet--she’s not feeling cheerful--but it’s too hot to really wear anything that she wants to wear, like a sweater. She finally finds an old Farmington tennis tshirt and pulls out a fraying pair of khaki shorts as well, then goes downstairs.

Her mother is waiting for her on the porch, wearing her casual summer uniform--a sleeveless blouse tucked into navy shorts, espadrilles on her feet. The table in front of her is covered with food, everything she likes to eat, from cucumber sandwiches to brownies to Nina’s famous crab and artichoke dip and more.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ she says, a bit speechless at the varied spread on the table.

‘Let me make you a plate,’ her mother tells her. ‘Sit back and sip your wine and just relax.’

She does as she’s told, and her mother assembles a plate of food for her as she looks out at the water. She sips her wine.

Being here, she has no idea why they don’t spend more time here in the summer. It’s quiet. The Sound laps at the shore at the end of the long green lawn.

She eats a little, at her mother’s urging, and suddenly she is starving. She’s barely had more than a sandwich for lunch or an omelette for dinner in weeks, it seems, and she finishes her plate, then has seconds and thirds. Her mother looks on with approval.

‘You’re too thin,’ she says gently. ‘You haven’t been eating, have you?’

The question is rhetorical, thank God, because the answer is no. ‘I’ll have to thank Nina later.’

‘Have a brownie,’ her mother urges. She takes one.

‘Thank you for being here,’ she says, in between bites of brownie. ‘I’m sorry, Mummy.’

‘Never be sorry,’ Mummy says with force. ‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry that this is happening to you.’

She looks out at the water. ‘It’s not just… the breakup,’ she says slowly, faltering. ‘Work is difficult, too. The things people do… that they are capable of…’ She breaks off. She doesn’t want to get into this with her mother. ‘But also… losing what I thought I’d have. I thought… I thought I knew what our--my--’ she corrects herself, ‘--future would be like. And it’s been… difficult… to adjust my view of the future accordingly.’

Her mother is silent--not a judgemental silence, but a silence to offer space for further confidences.

‘I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised,’ she admits. ‘When he said he didn’t want to get married. We’d never talked about it, really. Children, yes, but only two or three times… actually, we only had an actual discussion about children once, when we went out East together for the first time. I mentioned children a few more times, but now that I think about it… he never said anything in response.’ She looks down at her lap. ‘I was a fool. I should have seen the signs… he never wanted to commit to me in any meaningful way, but I thought he did…’

‘You aren’t a fool, darling.’

‘I am, though,’ she says, needing to say what happened. Maybe if she does, she thinks, it’ll draw the poison out of that memory. Maybe it will stop hurting so much. ‘To be so surprised when he just wanted our relationship to stay the way it was… he wouldn’t even commit to living with me. I offered… when we heard about Staten Island, I suggested we buy a place together in the Village, so that it would be a better commute for him… he told me… he didn’t want to make that commitment. He didn’t see why we had to get married. Children… he told me that having children wasn’t a good idea now, or for a while. So… I don’t know what else I could have done.’ She stops speaking, then adds, softly, ‘I still love him. And that is what makes me foolish.’

‘He loved you, darling. Loving someone… that doesn’t make you foolish.’

‘When we were ending our relationship… if he had given me anything, I never would have ended it, but… he didn’t. Or couldn’t. And I asked him if he loved me. He couldn’t say it.’

She looks at her mother, who looks infinitely exhausted and sad. ‘Oh, darling. Oh, Lilibet… I’m so sorry.’

‘I don’t want you to tell Daddy,’ she whispers. ‘Or anyone else. It’s--I’m ashamed. To have been so blind. My God, I’m a psychologist, and I couldn’t, or wouldn’t see it…’ She trails off, embarrassed to have even admitted this much to anyone, even though this is her mother. She’d told Nicky what happened, but not what she felt about it, how she felt.

Mummy squeezes her hand. ‘I won’t tell anyone. It’s just between us. But, Lilibet… you aren’t a fool. You are a wonderful, generous, loving woman. You trusted him… and he let you down. And I am so sorry. Anything I can do… I wish I could just fix this for you. I wish you didn’t have to feel like this.’

‘Thank you for listening,’ she tells her mother. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you, my Lilibet. I love you so much.’

She leans into her mother’s embrace and closes her eyes, focusing only on the feel of her hand stroking her hair and the soothing nonsense words she croons.

She wakes up to a beautiful day. It makes her sad. Four years ago today they got together, and although they weren’t yet in a relationship, it was the start. They hadn’t known it at the time, but going out to dinner with him, having him walk her home, going to bed with him… God, she thought it would be only one night, only once, but being with him was like being struck by lightning. She’d had an extremely fulfilling sex life with Luc, and she’d loved him, but Mike… she never, ever thought it could be like that, like a romance novel, like a film, like every song about love she’d ever heard. It was like every part of her body and mind and heart were engaged at the same time… 

Did he ever feel that way about her? That’s the problem, she thinks. She thought that he did. She thought that he felt exactly the same way about her as she did about him. Obviously, that was incorrect.

She is so _stupid_! She should have asked him, when things started getting serious, to tell her exactly what he felt for her and where he saw them going. If she’d done that, if she’d known that he didn’t see a future for them the way she saw one, then maybe she wouldn’t be so heartbroken now.

She found a sweater of his in the back of her dresser drawer. If it wasn’t so hot, she’d put it on and snuggle into it and pretend he was holding her. But it is, and she needs to stop thinking about him, even though today marks four years and they were supposed to celebrate… 

She loved him completely and to distraction and wanted him, ached with wanting him, needed him, wanted to possess him and be possessed herself, wanted him to hold her and kiss her and love her and make love to her… and she’d needed him. She still wants him and her need for him is more desperate now, a low-level burn that flares up throughout the day, especially as she prepares to go to bed or when she wakes up.

She’s had a series of erotic dreams and waking up every morning, burning with unsatisfied desire, is not only distressing but acutely uncomfortable. In the almost-four years they were together, by the time they were officially together the longest they’d gone without having sex was two weeks, except after… and, even years later, they’d had sex at least once, and often twice a day, sometimes more. And now… 

She’s got to do something about it. Not have sex with someone else--she’s not ready for that yet, might not be for a long time. It’s not just the emotional aspects of a breakup, but also after she was… navigating consent and what she feels comfortable doing with a new partner is something she just cannot do right now.

She’s tried to… take matters into her own hands--she chuckles involuntarily at her turn of phrase--but it hasn’t worked. She can imagine him, but then imaginary-Mike will turn on her too, telling her he doesn’t love her, doesn’t want her… hardly conducive to satisfying desire. She’s even tried imagining Luc, but she hasn’t seen him for so long that she can barely call him up, and not enough to help with this.

She gets out of bed and gets dressed in another old tshirt and pair of shorts. This is the sloppiest in dressing that she gets, and she was never like this when they were together. Even after… she wore leggings and big sweaters, often his, yes, but this is a new level of casual. That bothered him, she knew. He liked to relax and wearing clothes like this--an old tshirt and shorts--was his usual attire when they could be alone. Maybe if she’d been able to relax more, they wouldn’t have had the problems they did.

Stop, she tells herself. That’s not remotely true. She goes downstairs.

It’s another hot day, and she fills a Tervis tumbler with iced coffee from the fridge and goes outside to the hammock. Her mother is in her study and Nina is at the store, stocking up on things for the rest of the weekend. She’s told her mother that she wants to spend the rest of the week here, and she’ll commute into the city. Her mother was happy about that, she could tell.

It’s a strange feeling to be so cosseted again. Mike has never been like that, although at times she’s wished he had been. But right now she feels loved and she basks in it, grateful for her mother, for Nina, for her father’s loving phone call yesterday. He asked if she would like him to come up, and she said that she would see him on Monday. They made arrangements for them to meet at Grand Central so they can go home together.

Right now, she’s just glad to be here with her mother. She’s lucky, despite it all, to have a place to go with someone who loves her and will take care of her. She closes her eyes and listens to the Sound and the birds singing and drifts off to sleep.


	33. Interlude

She’s worried about her daughter. She isn’t taking this well. Well, that’s not surprising. They were together for almost four years, and they’d essentially been living together, and she was--is--in love with him. They thought he was going to propose to her. He’d asked them to lunch to ask for their blessing and she was thrilled. They gave it to him unreservedly because they loved him too, for his own sake and because their daughter loved him, and they were excited to have him as their son-in-law.

Yes, things didn’t necessarily start out on the right foot. She especially thought Michael was a symptom of a late-blooming streak of rebellion. But then, the day after she and Nick met Mike, she and Liz had gone out to breakfast and Liz admitted that she was in love with him. That was a shock to her and to Nick when she told him. Michael was so different than Lucas, whom Liz had fallen in love with when she was studying in Paris. But meeting Michael, and hearing Liz tell her that she loved him, she looked at her daughter for what seemed like the first time in a long time.

She and Liz had been at odds for the few years prior to that revelation. She didn’t want that to be the case. She and her own mother had never had a particularly close relationship, but she wanted one with Liz, and Liz was her only child. So when she stopped and listened to her daughter, she realized that she was imposing her own view of life on her. And once she stopped and listened and learned who her daughter was, the tension between them eased. And now, over the past few years, they’ve rebuilt their relationship to the point that it’s stronger than it’s ever been.

She’s glad of it, especially because her daughter needs her help now. She wants to be there for her. She wants to take away all the pain she’s feeling. She wants to go to Michael’s apartment and shake some sense into him.

What happened between them to prompt that? He was finally ready to propose; Liz had waited years for him to be ready. So had they. What changed his mind? She knows that her daughter has left something out in her recounting of their breakup. She would never lie directly, but she is lying by omission. Did he cheat on her? Did he decide he just couldn’t marry her? Why?

She knew, always, that Michael felt the difference between his background and her daughter’s keenly. How could he not? But the thing he never seemed to understand is that none of them minded the difference. When they met Michael, it wasn’t his background that gave her pause, nor even his choice of profession--it was that he was her daughter’s colleague, that he had a very obvious roving eye, and that he didn’t seem comfortable in himself. But that was a mistaken first impression, just as she knows how mistaken his first thoughts about her were, too.

After Liz was… during that most traumatic time of her daughter’s life, he showed how devoted he was to her. He seemed able to reach her when they couldn’t and he loved her and stayed true to her. She’ll never stop being grateful for that, no matter what happened between the two of them.

Liz, her Lilibet, has always been such an independent and self-reliant person that she knows precisely how much it cost her to call, and how deeply she’s hurting. When she picked up the phone yesterday at the beach house and she heard her daughter sobbing, her heart stopped. Liz was crying so hard that she couldn’t make herself heard, so she covered the phone receiver, called out for her husband, and when she told him what was happening he booked her on the next helicopter from Southampton to the city without her having to tell him what she needed. He packed her purse for her, too, and when Lilibet had finally stopped crying enough to hear her, she told her she was leaving right away.

She looks down the lawn to her daughter. She’s almost thirty-four but she looks like a teenager right now, sprawled in the hammock, wearing an old tennis team tshirt, sleeping. She looks exhausted and worn-out from what she’s gone through. What she’d begun to say, that work was difficult too… yes, she’ll admit, neither she nor Nick thought that Liz’s desire to work with various police precincts was a good one. There was so much evil in the world and she and Nick had worked hard to give Liz a safe, beautiful, good life. They were lucky that they could do that, and yes, lucky that their daughter wanted to help people, to give back… but she had given so much. Was it worth it to her?

She knows that it’s killing Nick to not be here with them. He’d wanted to come too, wanted to bring their daughter here and lock the doors and keep everyone out, just to let her be safe…

They’ve never heard her cry like that. She’s still shaking from it, the manifestation of the anguish and anger and sadness that her daughter, her only child, is feeling… She stands up abruptly and crosses the lawn to Liz. She’s still sleeping, though not restfully, and she wants to take her in her arms and hold her tight for all that she’s almost thirty-four. Liz gives a little gasp and opens her eyes, which meet hers although it takes a moment for her daughter to focus on her.

‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’ she asks.

Liz closes her eyes. ‘I don’t know.’

She rests her hand on her daughter’s, which are clasped loosely in her lap. ‘Why don’t you come back to the porch and we’ll have something to eat. You missed breakfast.’

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’

She wants to linger, to walk back up to the sheltered porch holding Lilibet’s hand, but she forces herself to nod and walk back alone. _Stiff upper lip_ , she thinks, walking away from her daughter. _She needs you to be strong right now_.

He’s going frantic stuck out here, waiting for his wife’s daily update. He doesn’t know how he can remain out here, with all the family here this weekend, but he has to, he knows that. _Stiff upper lip_ , he thinks. Lilibet is with Isobel. She’ll be safe. And as long as he’s here, he can answer the questions that his daughter’s cousins have about the breakup and he can tell them the story that’s been agreed upon. He can at least make it so that she doesn’t have to deal with that as well.

He is so angry with Michael--furious. How dare he do that to Elizabeth. He’d gone to the trouble of taking them out to lunch to ask for their blessing, had told them that he wanted to get married to Elizabeth right away, as soon as they could plan it--maybe in the fall. And then their daughter comes back from Bermuda, telling them that he told her he never wanted to get married.

What happened?

He and Isobel had had their share of grief--the miscarriages, losing their baby boy when she was six months pregnant--but they’d always had each other and then, after a decade of trying, their beautiful daughter. She was--and is--perfect. Beautiful and smart and the top of her class always, elegant and kind and nurturing and sympathetic. She was the best of both of them, that was clear, and he’s grateful that they’ve always had a close relationship. And now… now, she’s hurting, and he wants to keep her safe, he doesn’t want her to be feeling like this…

He hears a shriek of laughter from one of the children and he bitterly resents that his wife’s nephews and their wives are here this weekend. This should be what his daughter has--a husband who loves her, a family. She wants that. She deserves that. She is a good person and she should have what she wants so much.

He and Isobel want grandchildren. They’ve discussed it--when Elizabeth has children, they’ll buy an apartment nearby, so they can help if she wants help, so that they can see their grandchild grow up. They thought that they should buy at least a two-bedroom apartment, so that their grandchild could have their own room when they stayed the night. After that lunch with Michael, they’d gone and looked at a few. Now, he doesn’t know what will happen.

He isn’t focused on grandchildren, of course, and neither is Isobel. They have never spoken to their daughter about their desire for grandchildren--they don’t want to pressure her. And they won’t love her any less if she decides not to have children. But he knows that she does want children, and he’s sure that now she’s adjusting her view of her future, when she thought that she would perhaps get married soon and start a family… there is a lot of adjustment to be done, for all of them.

Why did this have to happen to her? She was so happy and so completely in love with Michael. He was glad of it. He’d always hoped that she would find someone that she loved, who was a match to her in every way, just as he did all those years ago. The first time he saw Isobel was in the stands at the Harvard/Yale game when they were all in their first year of college. She was climbing up the bleachers to Miranda and she’d slipped and fallen. He caught her just in time and she’d looked up at him and that was it, he knew that she was the one. And so it proved. A month after graduating, they were married, and they’ve always been happy together. They want that for their daughter, too.

Well, they won’t push her into something else. Elizabeth is her own person, extremely independent even from a young age, and the last thing she needs is them to parade a series of eligible bachelors from their world in front of her… as his sister and Elizabeth’s friends attempted to do last weekend.

His sister had called him on Monday, telling him how she’d run into Elizabeth at the club and invited her and her friends to her Saturday night soirée. ‘Archie Newbold was there, too, of course--you remember his parents--and I spoke with Elizabeth’s friends. We managed to throw Elizabeth and Archie together a few times. I think we might be able to make a match!’

He had been furious, not only at his sister, who was good at having people do her bidding, but also at his daughter’s friends, however well-meaning they may have been, however much they had been manipulated by his sister. His daughter needs time and space; she does not need a constant reminder of how things could have been different if she had chosen someone else. She just needs some time.

He will admit that he hopes that she does choose someone more like herself to marry, for as much as they loved Michael, her background was always a bone of contention between them. If she does choose someone like Archie Newbold, that tension won’t be there. There won’t be battles over everything, from her children’s upbringing to the wedding to where they spend their holidays.

But would that be better for her than whatever she found with Michael? She’d loved him and he’d loved her too, they’d thought, and what they had was extraordinary. That’s what he wants for his daughter, he knows. Something extraordinary, but something lasting, too. What he has with Isobel.

He can hear the clatter of noise outside that signals the arrival of the caterers, coming to do a tasting for Charlie and Beth’s upcoming wedding. They’re having the reception at the Meadow Club and the service at St. Andrew’s Dune Church, but somehow Peter and Miranda’s house has been designated the staging ground. He doesn’t know why they don’t just get married in Darien, where Charlie is from, or in St. Louis, where Beth is from. Well, he does know--they met here three summers ago, so Southampton it is.

He’s glad Elizabeth isn’t here this weekend. The wedding is in two weeks and dealing with all these preparations, Beth’s overwhelming attitude towards this event, and the lack of an engagement ring would be too much for her right now. It’s too much for him, and he and Isobel have been happily married for almost forty-five years.

She’ll be back in two weeks for the wedding, which is on a Saturday. The festivities begin Friday during the day, so they will all come out on Thursday night in two weeks.

Is she going to ask someone to come with her? Has she even thought about it? He doesn’t want her to be subjected to gossip or pity, all of which will be there in plenty if she attends alone. He’ll mention it to Isobel and ask her to remind Elizabeth.

If only he could just turn back the clock to when she was a little girl. Skinned knees and a bump on her head from the boom were easier to deal with than this heartbreak.


	34. Stagnant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We jump a bit ahead in Mike's perspective here, timeline-wise.

He’s finished up his second full week and each day has seemed like a week by itself. He works every weekday for eight-hour shifts, then two weekends a month. He’ll be working this weekend, so it’s a good thing that he and Liz split, because he was supposed to go to her cousin’s wedding this weekend, and that wouldn’t be happening now.

He’ll see the pictures from the wedding, he figures, in _Vogue_ or _Quest_ or _Town & Country_. He wonders if she’s going by herself or with her friend Nick. Probably with Nick. She’s gonna have to deal with a lot of questions about why he isn’t there and their breakup--if her people don’t know by now, they certainly will after the weekend.

He went to a few weddings with her and she was the bridesmaid for one, once. They were fun, even if they definitely weren’t his scene. This one won’t be either, so it’s good that he’s not gonna be a part of that whole crowd any longer.

This weekend he’s on duty, but next weekend he and Sherri are going up to Rhinebeck. It’s been just over a month, now, and things are going well between them at least, if not at work. Being on domestics is… difficult, to say the least. He hates it. Shades of his parents every time they get called in on a DV call, and the rest of it… stolen lawnmowers, neighborhood feuds, seriously--what the fuck. That part, at least, is so… dull.

There have been a couple nights there when he and Sherri have spent them apart and each time he’s had an erotic dream about Liz. He’s got to cut them out somehow. They feel so real, each of them, and when he wakes up it takes a long time for him to accept that that’s all they are--dreams. He’s never gonna be with her again. The dreams are all he’s got left… so maybe he doesn’t really want them to go away.

The problem is that the dreams are not even half as satisfying as being with her in real life, but he still feels more connected to dream-Liz than he does to Sherri. It’s not Sherri’s fault. She’s doing everything right. If he was Liz, he’d say it was because they were a match on every level--professionally, personally, mentally, sexually… well, the latter was definitely true and it still surprises the hell out of him. He had a lot of experience in his life, and she hadn’t--she was definitely more… reserved in that way. Not that she was inexperienced. She just didn’t have the… breadth of his experimentations. He wasn’t reserved, that’s for sure. But goddamn, they really worked on that level. Everything about her was enough to turn him on. Sometimes they’d be at work and she’d meet his eyes and she’d get a twinkle in them, then do something that drove him wild--she’d fiddle with the button on her blouse while looking straight at him, a secret smile curving her lips, or she’d slip her foot out of her shoe to touch his ankle under the table, or, if they were sitting next to each other, she’d press her knee against his and drive him crazy.

Sometimes she’d work him up so much that he couldn’t wait. They’d finally found a spot in the precinct that was as private as it was gonna get, a small storage room that had fallen out of use but one that had a sturdy lock. It was also pretty far from the desks and the cells, so it was quiet too. They didn’t use it often, but the first time they did it there it had been so intense for them both that she bit his shoulder to keep herself from screaming, breaking the skin and almost drawing blood. He’d gripped her ass so hard she had fingermarks there for more than a week and he’d nearly blacked out because the combination of her, and the thrill of sneaking around at work, and the potential to get caught was a knockout.

He got teased relentlessly for it, he remembers, after Profaci saw the bite mark in the locker room. ‘Mikey’s got himself a wildcat!’ he’d called out, and he’d fended off jokes and teasing for the next couple weeks. Liz heard them once, he remembers suddenly. She’d gone bright red and thank Christ no one else noticed. She was mortified enough at this aspect of their private life being aired.

He’s never gonna have that with Sherri or with anyone else, but he fucked it up, so he’s gotta move on. Things might not be like that with her, but they have a lot of good things. She’s been a big help to bounce things off of with the DV calls, and her gift of that boxing membership was a great one. He’s getting pretty good if he does say so himself.

She’s a good person and a great girlfriend. She’s interesting and passionate about work and bed, and if she’s not Liz, well, that’s not her fault. No one’s gonna be like Liz, and that’s his own fault.

She wanted to marry him. She wanted to be with him forever, to live with him, to have hils children, and--and, well, why couldn’t he commit? He went so far as to buy her a fucking engagement ring, gathering dust in his closet, and she was standing there, right in front of him, asking if he loved her. And he couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t make that leap.

He gets off the ferry. Another start to another long day. Jesus.

Ten hours later his shift is over. There’s literally nothing to show for the day, either. More stolen lawnmowers. A stolen lawn flamingo too, for fuck’s sake. This sort of shit eats into his day and honestly, it takes a lot of coffee to keep him awake when he’s interviewing these fucking people and typing up reports in triplicate.

Sherri’s working late tonight, so when he gets back to his place he has dinner on his own and then goes for a run. For some reason, he finds himself across the street from her building. He finds himself searching for her apartment, looking to see if any lights are on. But no. The apartment is dark and there’s no one there.

He turns and runs back to his place. He’s tired and he has to get up early. Might as well just go home. There’s nothing for him here.

He gets home to a message from Sherri on his machine, suggesting dinner tomorrow night. He makes a mental note to call her back in the morning and then showers, making something quick to eat before heading to bed.

He’s at his desk, working on a report. She’s sitting in a chair at the corner of his desk, looking so sexy in the navy blue wrap dress he loves. She’s teasing him, resting her fingertips at the base of her throat, tracing patterns on her skin. She’s driving him crazy. Lennie isn’t there, thank God, so when he nudges her ankle with his foot, and she meets his eyes, he can see the heat and desire in her gaze. She smiles slowly and he jerks his head to the back of the bullpen. She nods.

He leaves first, opening the door and doing a quick sweep to make sure everything’s clean. He hopes it doesn’t take her long to join him because Christ, he needs her right now.

After a blessedly short time, he hears her knock at the door, three short taps, and he opens the door. She steps inside immediately and he locks the door behind them.

There isn’t really a light, just a dimmed bulb, but that’s fine with him. He takes her into his arms and pushes her back against the wall.

‘Jesus Christ, Lizzie,’ he says, sliding one hand underneath her dress. ‘What the hell were you doin’?’

He can see her smile. ‘Mm, you noticed?’

‘I noticed,’ he says, and bends to kiss her neck. She smells so good, he thinks, and he can feel her heartrate increase as he pulls her towards him. She gasps softly as he continues to kiss her, moving lower, as she busily unbuckles his belt.

‘Oh, oh--’ Her voice has that super sexy huskiness it does when she’s extremely aroused. Her hips are beginning to rock against his and he doesn’t want to wait. He yanks off her underwear and she pushes down his pants and she buries her face against his neck as he enters her, exhaling sharply.

‘Christ,’ he breathes, staying still, just relishing the feel of being inside her. ‘Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.’

‘Fuck _me_ ,’ she tells him, a hint of laughter in her voice. ‘Please, please--’

He complies, shifting his stance so that he can thrust into her harder. She feels so good around him, perfect, incredible. He buries his face in her hair and inhales her scent and the combination of that and the scent of her skin and the feel of her and the way she gasps his name against his neck all combine to push him over the edge.

It takes a while to come back to himself. He can feel her ragged breath on his neck, her pounding heartbeat, the way her lips curve into a smile.

‘God,’ she says, and chuckles. ‘We should do this all our lives.’

In that moment he knows he’s dreaming. His heart sinks.

‘I love you, sweetheart,’ she says softly, kissing his shoulder. She pulls back to look at him and smile. ‘I love you, Mike.’

He feels himself waking up, losing his grip on this dream, this dream when they are happy. It takes every bit of willpower he has to keep holding on. ‘Lizzie,’ he says. ‘Marry me. Please be my wife. Please say yes.’

Her eyes widen in surprise. She clears her throat and she opens her mouth to reply.

He’s staring up at his ceiling. ‘Fuck,’ he says. ‘Oh, fuck.’

He gets out his box of Lizzie photos and looks through them for the one of them in Ireland. He finally finds it at the bottom. The corner is creased, covering her face--he should have been more careful with it. This photograph is the one that matters.

He flattens it out carefully. The photo is ruined, he thinks, suddenly angry at himself. There’s a line cutting across her face, obscuring her beautiful features. Despite the damage to the picture, though, he can still see her shining, radiant joy. She was so happy that day. That was what she’d wanted--the promise she’d wanted, the ring she’d wanted, the person she’d wanted. And she had all those things, even if it was only for a little while.

He studies the photograph carefully. She looks so beautiful. He remembers that day perfectly now, the way her dress fluttered in the breeze, the feel of her hands holding his, how his family ring looked on her hand. The look in her eyes when she smiled at him. How much she loved him. And--she had loved him. He’d never doubted that. He still doesn’t.

He hopes she finds someone who will make her happy, who will fill her with joy the way he used to. She deserves that, at least. At the very least, she deserves that.

He closes his eyes. When he wakes up again, the photograph is no longer in his hand. It must have fallen. He looks for it, frantically, but it’s gone.

It figures, he thinks, after he’s finished looking everywhere. It’s what he deserves.


	35. that you burn for me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of this chapter includes the fic [that you burn for me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17694554).

Her mother drives her to the station on Monday after they have breakfast together on the porch. It’s a pleasant morning, though it promises to be hot and humid this afternoon. She’s glad she’s coming back here tonight after she collects some things from home. She’s going to meet her father at the Campbell Apartment at six-thirty for the 7:12 train.

Today she has to go home to her apartment, pack, collect her mail, then go to her office to see a patient. This afternoon, she has to go to the DA’s office for witness prep for a trial next month. In between packing and patients, she needs to call Nicky. Her mother reminded her that Charlie and Beth’s wedding is in two weeks. She’ll need to find someone to go with. The last thing she wants is to be at a wedding, alone, inviting pity and commentary on her newly-single state.

It would be bad at any wedding, but especially _this_ wedding. This wedding is going to be an enormous affair, with more than two hundred guests, Lester Lanin and his orchestra, dinner, dancing, and all the trappings. It’s the sort of wedding she would never have if she and Mike were getting married, but it’s the wedding she expected to have before she met him.

She shakes her head. Anyway. She needs to call Nicky.

‘I’m so sorry, darling, I can’t--I have to go up to Lenox to start a new commission,’ he tells her. ‘I’ve been trying to get this job for almost a year, I can’t change the start date. Everything’s finally in place.’

She forces down her disappointment. ‘Of course you can’t. That’s wonderful news! I’ll call you after the weekend and let you know how it went.’

‘What about Archie?’ he suggests, and she hears the eagerness to matchmake in his voice. ‘It looked like you had him wrapped around your finger on the train.’

‘I’ll call you after the wedding,’ she says. ‘Good luck.’ She hangs up and stairs out the window.

She shouldn’t be annoyed with Nicky and she shouldn’t have been curt with him. He’s finally getting the break he deserves--he’s an extremely talented architect and it’s past time for people to see that. But she was counting on him. She doesn’t know who else to ask. She doesn’t have any other single male friends, nor relations, and… God, why is she in this predicament? This isn’t fair. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

She turns back to her packing. She’ll go shopping this weekend and find a really stunning dress. If people are talking about her clothes, they at least won’t be talking about her attending the wedding alone. Or, better yet, she’ll go through her mother’s closet tonight. She has some very beautiful couture gowns that she hasn’t worn for a long time.

As for a date… if she sees Archie, she decides impulsively, then yes, she will ask him to go with her. Marginally cheered, she finishes packing and heads down to her office.

The day is long, even though witness prep doesn’t run as late as she anticipated. She’s glad of that, especially because she’ll have to head in to the 2-7 on Wednesday. That will be another long day, she knows, so she’ll stay at her apartment on Wednesday night. Now, however, she’s glad to be getting out of the humid city.

The Campbell Apartment is quiet and dim and cool, blessedly, after the heat of the day. It’s almost empty, too, despite the hour--but then it is before six, and the commuter rush. She’s early. She finds a small table near the unlit fireplace and orders a martini from the waiter who appears. That settled, she takes the book she’s reading, _The English Patient_ , out of her purse and begins to read while she waits for her martini. When it arrives, she looks up to thank the waiter and spots Archie ducking into the bar. _Of course_ , she thinks, half-resigned, but then he meets her eyes and smiles.

It’s not an ordinary smile. It’s a smile filled with such simple delight and pleasure and, yes, affection, that despite herself, she feels her heart flip over.

 _Well_ , she thinks, resisting the urge to rest her hand on her heart, which feels like it hasn’t quite resumed beating normally. _My God, Elizabeth. You can still feel things_.

‘Hello there,’ he says, coming up to her.

She feels herself smile back. ‘Do you want to come to a wedding with me?’

‘I’d accompany you anywhere,’ he replies, and, at her invitation, sits down next to her.

By the time her father joins them they are up to speed on the week since they’ve seen each other. He is on his way to New Canaan to collect a manuscript from one of his authors. She tells him about the wedding--her cousin Charlie, her mother’s nephew, to Beth, who he met in the Hamptons four years ago. Black tie, of course, at St. Andrew’s Dune Church with a reception at the Meadow Club. He sounds interested in the plans, unlike Mike, who had scoffed and complained about having to wear a “monkey suit.” What a difference!

Archie greets her father with delight too, though not as effusive as he was with her. He explains that they ran into each other again--‘I’ll admit, sir, your sister sent me to speak with Elizabeth the first time we reconnected, but everything else was a coincidence’--and her father relaxes, chatting easily with Archie. They almost miss their train, and as Archie goes to settle the bill, her father leans forward to speak with her.

‘Would you like to invite him to dinner?’ he asks. ‘And to stay at the beach house for the wedding?’

She looks at Archie, considering. She’s not ready for a relationship, but he could be a friend, and besides--she should get to know him better before he’s her date for a family wedding. And the memory of his smile, and what he said… ‘I’d go anywhere with you.’ She looks back at her father and nods as Archie rejoins them.

Archie can’t join them for dinner, but they make plans to have dinner in the city, all of them, on Thursday. He is appropriately grateful for the invitation to stay at the beach house for the wedding and they arrange to drive down together, the two of them, next Thursday.

When she gets home, her father tells her mother what happened this evening and she goes in to raid her mother’s closet. When Mummy joins her, she’s holding an Oleg Cassini up to see how she looks. It’s a beautiful dress, strapless, made of floating pale blue organdy.

‘That would look perfect on you,’ Mummy says, smiling at her in the mirror. ‘Why don’t you try it on? You can wear my sapphires.’

She smiles back at her mother and does as she suggests. She puts on the sapphires first, the simple pendant necklace and matching earrings, then steps into the dress. Her mother buttons up the row of small buttons and they stand looking at her reflection.

‘You look perfect, Lilibet,’ her mother says. ‘Like a dream.’

She blushes. ‘Well, if you don’t mind, I’d like to borrow the dress.’

‘Of course I don’t mind,’ her mother replies, brushing a stray strand of hair back. ‘And the jewelry, too. You look so beautiful. I’m so proud of you.’

When she wakes up on Thursday morning after her unwise indulgence, she’s mortified. She should not have listened to that tape he made her months ago and done… that. But she needed to relieve the tension somehow. She doesn’t want her need for… physical connection… to push her into something with Archie that she doesn’t want. If she does go to bed with him, it has to be because she wants it, not because she just needs to… release some tension.

The tape confirmed a few things for her. One, that he knew her well, that he had known how to arouse her and knew how much she wanted him always. Two, that he had loved her once, even if it was only when he made the tape. And three, that he still could never say it at a time when he could reasonably expect her to hear it. If she hadn't listened to the end of the tape, she would never have heard it.

 _You shouldn’t have done that, Elizabeth_ , she thinks. _That wasn’t wise of you to do._ She’d cried after she climaxed, wept for a long time. She missed him. She still misses him. But it’s over now; she knows that in a way that she hadn’t known it before.

Tonight she is meeting her parents and Archie at Doubles, so she chooses her outfit carefully--a sleeveless navy crepe-de-Chine dress with a full-ish skirt and an Hermès scarf. She puts on her large pearl pendant earrings too. That will work well, she thinks, studying herself in the mirror. She won’t have time after her appointments to come home and change. She’s staying in the city tonight again, though tomorrow night she’ll join her parents at Southerly.

Today is her patients day, which is good because she would not feel comfortable wearing this outfit to the precincts. To the DA’s office, yes, or if she was testifying, but there’s something about the precincts that demands more sobriety in her dress. Next week, on Monday, she has an appointment to interview Abby’s uncle. She’s dreading it.

 _Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof_ , she reminds herself. She has enough to do today--enough to worry about today--without filling up the hours with thoughts about the future.

Dinner with Archie tonight. She’s relieved her parents will be there too. She isn’t ready to date, or to feel attracted to someone else, but--she’ll admit that she does feel the teensiest bit drawn to him. Maybe it’s those shared childhood moments, or the fact that they are both going through the ending of a serious relationship, or because he was just so obviously happy to see her, but… she’s thought of him more than she thought she would think of anyone else for a long time.

She applies some makeup and looks at herself critically. She looks good. She makes herself some toast for breakfast, drinks some coffee, then heads into her office.

She’s late. She’s quite late. She lost track of time and it’s the cab changeover so she couldn’t find one, so she’s rushed from her office to Doubles. Finally she arrives, stopping in the bathroom to brush her hair and splash her face with cool water before making her way to the bar.

She’s only fifteen minutes late after all, she notes, as she spies her parents and Archie at the bar. They’re engaged in a comfortable conversation, which is a relief. Archie spies her first, and tells her parents, and they all look up and smile at her as she approaches them.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she apologies, greeting everyone--even Archie--with a kiss on the cheek. ‘I wish I had a better excuse, but I got caught up with my paperwork and then couldn’t get a cab.’

‘That’s fine, darling. What can I get you to drink?’ her mother says.

‘A martini, please,’ she replies gratefully. Archie pulls out her chair for her and she takes a seat as her mother orders her drink.

‘How was your day?’ her father asks.

‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Just busy. Patients, paperwork… that sort of thing. And you?’

Her father says something about his day, explaining the minutiae of a fund he’s working on. She doesn’t understand it--she never has, that’s why she didn’t go into the bank. Archie says that Audrey sends her best love.

‘Please give her mine,’ she says, smiling at the thought of her friend. ‘I owe her a visit.’

‘We’d be happy to see you at the office anytime,’ Archie tells her. ‘I’ll take you both out to lunch.’

‘I’d like that,’ she admits.

Thankfully her martini arrives before she is forced to say anything else. She takes a sip of the strong drink, willing down the color in her cheeks. She doesn’t want to be flirting with someone, let alone in front of her parents!

Her mother carries the conversation, asking Archie about his various relations. Her father listens with interest; of course he does, he grew up next door to Archie’s father. Archie replies, telling stories that have them all laughing.

When they sit down for dinner, he pulls her chair out for her. Looking up at him, she’s unsure if he’s flirting or just being courteous. He gives no sign of it throughout dinner, though she finds herself staring at him, trying to figure him out. What does he want from her? More importantly, what does she want from him?

She’s so lonely and she misses Mike so much that maybe beginning something with Archie will help. At least she’ll be able to stop thinking only about Mike. And Archie is a kind person, someone who she gets along well with, and… she is attracted to him. She’d forgotten how that felt, being attracted to someone new, the promise of it. Well, that’s what she has now that she’s lost him, she thinks. He’s certainly not wasted any time finding someone else. She shouldn’t let some misguided sense of loyalty towards him dictate the rest of her life.

She’d made a promise to him--to love him forever, to be true to him. He made the same promises to her. He broke them first. Does that mean her promises shouldn’t be kept? She thinks it does, if he’s made it clear he no longer wants to be in her life. She thinks that breaking those promises now will be the only way she’ll be able to survive.

When dinner ends, Archie offers to see her home. She agrees. She hasn’t yet made a decision, but she will at least begin the conversation she needs to have with him if they do… make this more personal. They say goodbye to her parents and she suggests they walk a little. He agrees easily and offers her his arm, which she takes.

Touching him, feeling the strong muscles beneath her hand, helps ease her mind. Yes, she is attracted to him, she admits. And she can do something about that.

‘If we… if our relationship changes, Archie, there are a few things you need to know.’

‘I’m listening,’ he says, pressing her hand in a silent show of support.

‘I was raped,’ she begins. It’s still so hard to say it. ‘By my gynecologist. He shot me up with a sedative and--’ she breaks off. ‘So, being… intimate… might be difficult with someone new.’

‘I understand,’ he says quietly. ‘I remember reading about… what happened. And I promise, that if our relationship shifts and incorporates that aspect of things, you will be in control. And if you ever feel uncomfortable, we’ll stop.’

‘Thank you,’ she says. She is relieved. She didn’t think he’d understand, and while he says he does… he might not, if things happen. But right now she’ll trust him. She’ll try to, at least.

Their silence, as they walk back to her apartment, is companionable, but with an undercurrent of awareness that still surprises her. After being wrapped up in Mike for so long, it’s incredible to her that she can feel this for someone else, someone not remotely like him.

They reach her building and they stop outside the side door. ‘Would you like to come up for a drink?’ she asks, to her surprise.

He smiles at her. ‘I’d like that very much, but it’s late, unfortunately, and I have to walk my dog. Rain check?’

She nods, relieved. She needs time to think. ‘Thank you for walking me home.’

‘Any time,’ he tells her, and bends to kiss her cheek. She turns her head so that his lips meet hers instead and they linger there for a while, though they do not otherwise touch. When she pulls back, he smiles down at her. ‘That was lovely.’

She feels like she might laugh. It was very nice. ‘Good night,’ she says softly.

‘Good night,’ he says, and waves as she opens the door and disappears inside.


	36. Suzy Says

Sunday is his day of rest this week, but he wakes up early anyway. He doesn’t disturb Sherri, who is curled up on her side in his bed, and gets dressed quietly. He wants to get the papers and a couple bacon egg and cheeses.

The bodega is busy, and by the time he purchases their breakfasts, coffee, and the papers, he’s sure she’s gonna be awake. He’s right--she is, and she’s reading on the sofa. She greets him with a smile.

‘This is a nice treat,’ she says, kissing him. ‘Thanks for getting breakfast.’

‘Sure,’ he says.

‘I’ll get plates and stuff,’ she tells him, collecting their breakfast from him. He’s glad of a couple minutes of privacy to read what he wants to. He opens the Ledger and finds what he’s looking for in the column “Suzy Says.”

 _Well, darlings, the wedding of the summer--at least the wedding of August--has come to a close. As we try to collect our missing shoes and... other garments... life resumes. For those who weren't blessed with invitations, that's why I was there_!

**The Particulars**

_The groom, travel writer and international playboy, the youngest scion and black sheep of the illustrious Griswold-Van Schuyler merger, was, of course, Charlie Griswold. The bride, the former Bethan Douglas, is the daughter of Will and Bethan Douglas of St. Louis. The bride, who goes by Beth, is the assistant manager of the gallery owned by her sister-in-law Chrissy Griswold. The bride and groom met four years ago in Southampton._

_The wedding ceremony was at St. Andrew's Dune Church and the reception (and after-party) was held at the Meadow Club._

**Who Was There?**  
  
_A glut of bold-faced names attended, including a notorious reformed Hollywood playboy and his lovely actress wife, a prince and his American wife from our favorite oil-producing nation, the crème de la crème of New York Society (and St. Louis Society--who knew they had one?), and, of course, the families of the newlyweds._

**Isn't it Romantic?**

_Speaking of families, the groom's maternal aunt and uncle are just as in love as ever, forty-five years on. A record, perhaps? But then marriage might be easy when you own a bank. Their daughter was stunning in floating blue organdy, certainly one of Oleg Cassini's best designs. She was spotted smooching with the editor of our favorite short story collection, the subjects being US, of course! The former Debutante of the Year (1977) and esteemed psychologist is a great-granddaughter of Charles Pratt and the daughter of the aforementioned couple. Mr. Editor--or should we say the Honourable Mr. Editor?--is the son and grandson of noted industrialists and son of the very stylish Irish peeress who has made New York her home. We have it on good authority that the couple used to play together as children. It's a match made in heaven... or at least a match made on the North Shore, which is pretty close. Now, isn't that romantic?_

His heart stops. She’s dating someone else? He flips through to see the photographs of the wedding and yes, there she is, in the arms of another man. The caption reads: “Dancing cheek-to-cheek: Elizabeth Olivet and Archie Newbold.” _Jesus_ , he thinks angrily. She’s laughing and looking up at him with what could be adoration--it’s hard to tell with the shitty newsprint--but she’s in his arms and his hand is on her lower back and they were seen _smooching_ \--

‘Is that Dr. Olivet?’ Sherri says over his shoulder. He yelps, startled, and nearly knocks over his coffee. ‘It is!’ she says. ‘Wow, she looks amazing.’

She does look amazing, he thinks. She looks beautiful.

Sherri takes the paper out of his hands and flips back to the story. She scans it, then says, ‘Do you think that’s about her? I can’t imagine too many people at that wedding are psychologists.’

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘That’s about her. Her dad owns the New York Trust Bank. The groom is her cousin.’

Sherri’s attention is suddenly focused on him. ‘How do you know that?’

He picks up his coffee. ‘She’s the person I was dating for a while.’

‘What?’ she says, her voice deliberately calm.

‘We dated for a while.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asks, suddenly angry. ‘My God, Mike--so she overheard me asking you out to dinner? That’s how she found out you cheated on her?’

 _Shit_ , he thinks. _Now we’re gonna have a scene._ ‘It doesn’t matter. We were done.’

‘Still! I can’t imagine finding out my longterm boyfriend was cheating on me with a colleague, and finding out so publicly… Jesus, Mike!’

She turns away from him. He doesn’t know what to do. He didn’t think she’d put that together and he honestly didn’t think she’d care.

‘I admit it wasn’t the best way for her to find out,’ he begins, choosing each word carefully. He sets the paper aside and stands up, resting his hand on her back. ‘And I think that a lot of her reaction was due to shock. I apologized to her. And obviously I feel bad that I hurt her… but I’m glad we’re together, Sherri.’

‘She’s not at all the person you described,’ she says. ‘She’s not spoiled or delusional.’

He caresses her shoulder, drawing her closer. She doesn’t quite resist him. ‘She’s different outside of work. I mean, you read that little writeup about her. Her parents own a bank, her great-grandfather was Charles Pratt… she couldn’t help being spoiled.’

Sherri nods reluctantly. ‘Well, she looks happy, at least.’

‘Yeah,’ he agrees, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. ‘He’s a better match for her, for sure.’

‘Did you love her?’ Sherri asks, pulling his arms around her.

‘I thought I did, once,’ he admits. ‘But I was wrong.’

She turns in his arms and looks at him for a long time before she stretches up to kiss him. He responds with gratitude that the conversation is over, but as he closes his eyes all he can see is Liz, kissing someone else.

They have sex but it’s not as satisfying as it usually is--for either of them. After they lie next to each other for a while, he gets out of bed and takes a shower. They tacitly agree that she’ll go back to her place tonight. They both need some space. As soon as she goes, he opens the paper again and studies the picture of her. He can’t believe it. She’s seeing someone else. What the fuck? She wanted to marry him and now she’s seen “smooching” some random guy? She shouldn’t be doing that!

 _You wanted to marry her, too,_ his conscience reminds him. _But you hopped into bed with Sherri and now you’re in a relationship with her. She probably just didn’t want to go to the wedding alone._

‘Still!’ he exclaims. He looks at the photograph again. The bastard’s arm is around her waist, pulling her close, and she’s looking up at him, laughing. He made her laugh. He was kissing her. He’s probably looked upon with approval by Nick and Isobel. He realizes that he’s crumpled the paper beyond recognition and he forces himself to set it down.

 _It’s your own goddamn fault_ , he tells himself. _That could have been you. Hell, you guys could’ve been married now if you’d just apologized. But you didn’t. Just let her be happy. Let her find someone else._

He doesn’t know that he can, even though he’s already moved on. She shouldn’t. She should… wait for him to be ready, or something. Wait for him to come back to her. She shouldn’t be swanning around with someone else when she is still in love with him. She should be trying to get him back.

Right?

If she wanted to marry him, have children with him… she shouldn’t have let him go. She should have fought harder. She should be here now, trying to get him back, not smooching some guy in the Hamptons!

 _Fuck her,_ he thinks. _Goddamn her. Goddamn her to hell._ He’s furious. He’s so angry with her that right now, if he could, he’d punch another councilman. It takes all he has to keep himself from punching a hole in his wall. _She shouldn’t have done that. That was wrong. She promised me that she and I were gonna be together forever. Now she’s off with some other guy. What the fuck, Liz?_

He can’t just sit here any more. He gets dressed and goes for a run, ending up outside her building. The lights are on in her apartment and as he watches, a man comes to the window and draws the curtains to her bedroom. He can’t see him clearly, but it looks like he’s wearing a robe.

 _No_ , he thinks angrily. _No. That’s not right._

He stands there watching for a long time, looking at her apartment, trying to figure out what’s going on inside. Finally he leaves, cursing her silently as he runs home.


	37. A lady who lingers/saying she is lost

She spends the entirety of Thursday in a nervous panic. She was the one who started this, she was the one who asked Archie to come with her, but now, faced with his imminent arrival, she’s… terrified. Not of Archie--he’s been a perfect gentleman--but… well, the unknown. Going to this wedding with him, being faced with family and friends and acquaintances, having to explain again and again and again that she and Mike are through, trying to navigate this gossip-riddled world with a new partner… she’s not up to this.

It’s too late. She’s packed and there’s her apartment phone, buzzing. She’s sure it’s the doorman on duty, telling her that Archie is here for her, and when she picks up the phone she’s proved right.

‘Please let him know I’ll be right down,’ she says.

She takes a few minutes to attempt to collect herself before going downstairs. She takes a deep breath, studies her reflection in the mirror, and the checks her purse and weekend bag to make sure she has everything. She does, and there’s no way she can delay any further, so she picks up her bags and goes downstairs.

Despite her delay, he is waiting patiently for her, looking completely at ease. As she walks towards him, he steps forward to take her bags from her and kiss her cheek.

‘Hello,’ he says, smiling. ‘Ready to go? I’m parked just out front.’

‘I’m ready,’ she agrees. She says goodbye to her doorman and they head out to his car--a beautiful restored MG convertible.

‘My pride and joy,’ he tells her, grinning. ‘I thought we could put her through her paces this evening.’

‘Wonderful,’ she says. She doesn’t know what to say, really, but he grins wider so obviously her response was the correct one. He puts her bags next to his in the trunk of the car and then opens the door for her with a flourish.

‘Your chariot awaits,’ he jests, and she smiles at him, still feeling anxious, before sliding into the car. The seat is very soft, and he’s obviously gone to some efforts to make sure she will be comfortable. There’s a small basket tucked at her feet with a thermos, probably of coffee, a book, sunglasses, and a bottle of water. She’s touched. It’s very kind of him, and thoughtful, to take the time. He gets in the car too and grins at her.

‘So, there’s coffee, water, some snacks, anything you might need,’ he tells her, indicating the basket. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Thank you,’ she says, feeling some of the tension leave her body. ‘I’m ready.’

‘Good.’

Once they leave city traffic behind, the drive is smooth. As his car is a convertible, and he keeps the top down as it’s a beautiful evening, they are precluded from conversing. It’s a relief. She leans back against the seat and watches as they drive along the south shore onto the East End, and lets herself drift.

This weekend still seems monumentally important--and, in the scheme of things, it is. It’s the first big event she’s facing without Mike. That, even if it wasn’t the wedding extravaganza that it will be, would be enough. And this is her first event with someone else.

Archie joined her and her parents for dinner twice more after their dinner at Doubles, and they also had dinner alone. True to his word, he didn’t push her, didn’t pressure her, and she does feel comfortable enough with him. She also feels attracted to him.

He’s staying at Peter and Miranda’s house this weekend, too. It’s a full house--Teddy and Chrissy and their sons; James and Alice; Bill and Margot and their sons, too, as well as her parents, Peter and Miranda, and Charlie and Charlie’s lone non-fraternal groomsman, Tom Renaud, a friend from Le Rosey, during those few years her aunt and uncle decided to live in Switzerland. Her aunt and uncle, too, are there, staying in the pool house.

It’s exhausting to contemplate. She’s glad that she has her own room. The four children will be sharing the attic. James and Alice will be sharing the pool house with his parents. Charlie and Tom and Archie are sharing the sleeping porch.

She feels vaguely guilty about that, especially as she has her own big room to herself, but she’s grateful that Archie didn’t press, or say anything negative at all. He simply thanked her for finding space for him.

They’ve made very good time. When they reach the Hamptons, they get off the highway and take the back roads, meandering through the farmland north of the highway as they head east. When they reach Southampton they turn again, driving towards the beach. They finally reach Gin Lane and she directs him to Peter and Miranda’s house.

Even if she didn’t know there was a wedding this weekend, she’d know now. They can hear music and laughter as they pull between the privet hedges into the driveway, which is packed with cars. They find a spot by the garage and Archie turns off the car and turns to her.

‘Do you want us to bring our things in and then join the party, or join the party and I’ll bring your bag in later?’

‘Let’s bring our bags in first,’ she says. ‘We might not have a chance later.’

‘All right,’ he agrees. They get out of the car and he puts the top on the car before getting their bags. She leads the way into the house.

She stops in the doorway. The house is absolutely filled with people. She didn’t expect this--they were all just supposed to have a casual barbecue when everyone arrived from the city, not an official party…

‘This is not what I expected,’ she says, turning to Archie. ‘It was supposed to be a quiet evening.’

Just then her aunt comes and embraces her. ‘Liz, darling, it’s been too long!’ she says, embracing her.

‘Hello, Aunt Nan,’ she says, returning her embrace. ‘Do you know Archie Newbold?’

Her aunt pulls back from her and gives Archie a grin. ‘No, but I’ve heard so much about you that it feels like I’m meeting a celebrity. I’m Nan, the mother of the groom. My husband Chip is around here somewhere. He’s dying to meet you too.’

‘Thank you for including me,’ Archie says, shaking her hand. ‘I appreciate the invitation.’

‘We’re glad to have you,’ Nan says. ‘I know that you weren’t really expecting… all this… but Beth got a bit carried away. I hope you don’t mind. There’s food outside, and I think your parents, Liz, are camped out by the hammock.’

‘Thank you. I’m going to show Archie the sleeping porch and then we’ll join you all.’

‘Take your time,’ Nan says, nudging her and raising an eyebrow as Archie bends to pick up their bags again. ‘He’s very handsome!’ she whispers, and she finds herself blushing.

Archie straightens up. ‘It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Griswold.’

‘Call me Nan, please!’ she says, and before her aunt can get into anything else she rests her hand on Archie’s upper arm and guides him to the stairs.

The sound of the party barely fades as they head up to the second floor. Her bedroom is at one end of the hall, with the door to one of the linen closets and a door to a bathroom separating her room from the sleeping porch. The sleeping porch is really a misnomer--she can’t remember the last time anyone actually slept there--but it has beds and it is useful for the sheer amount of people who will be here.

‘This is my room,’ she says, pointing at her door. ‘The sleeping porch is there. The bathroom is right here, and then there’s a linen closet with extra blankets and towels.’ She pauses. ‘Can I get you anything?’

He shakes his head. ‘I’m all right, thank you. I’ll just change, and perhaps we can go downstairs together?’

‘That’s a good idea. Will you knock on my door when you’re ready?’

‘Yes,’ he agrees. She takes her bag from him and turns to go. ‘Liz?’ he says.

She turns to look at him. He smiles. ‘Thank you for inviting me.’

She feels herself blush. ‘Thank you for coming. See you in a few minutes.’ She turns away and steps into her room before he can notice, closing the door behind her. She takes a deep breath, then busies herself with unpacking. When she opens her closet, she sees her mother’s dress hanging there. Her parents had brought it down with them, with the shoes and the jewelry she’s borrowing too. She looks at it for a long moment, then hangs up her other clothes, puts on a sundress, and goes to wash her hands.

He knocks as she’s drying her hands, so she calls out to him to come in. She hears him open the door and she looks at herself quickly in the mirror. Her cheeks are flushed and she still feels uncomfortable, though that’s because she’s also feeling attracted to him. If she and Mike were still together, and Archie happened to be a guest at this wedding, would she be feeling the same way? She thinks not. She was so wrapped up in Mike that there was no room for anything else. And there isn’t room in her heart, yet, but her body has other ideas.

She steps out of the bathroom. He’s changed too, out of his suit and into slacks and a nice linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He really is so different from Mike in every way, she thinks again, for at least the fiftieth time. She had loved the feeling of Mike’s muscled body against hers, and Archie’s body wouldn’t feel like that, not as solid and consuming. She feels her face burning.

‘You look so beautiful,’ he tells her, stepping closer to her. ‘You are an exceptionally beautiful woman.’

‘Thank you,’ she replies, feeling her heartrate increase. _Is he going to kiss me?_ she wonders, but he doesn’t, just bows and offers her his arm. She takes it, feeling a bit disappointed, and then they head downstairs.

They are separated immediately. She’s swept up into the crowd and interrogated about Archie by, it seems, everyone. She is barely able to wave to her parents before Beth takes her firmly by the arm and drags her through a series of introductions.

‘...and I’ve put you and Archie together for the tennis tournament tomorrow,’ Beth tells her.

‘I didn’t think I was playing,’ she says, surprised. Beth and insisted that many of the wedding guests involve themselves in this round-robin tennis tournament she planned. She wasn’t intending to play, as the person who would have been her partner--Mike--didn’t play, but--

‘Your parents spoke with Archie about it. He brought his tennis whites, yours are already here, and you know there are a billion spare racquets at the club.’

She sighs but is forced to agree. What else can she say? The last thing she wants to do is upset the bride, who seems to have a very clear picture of the way her weekend should go. She silently vows that if she is ever a bride, she won’t be like this.

By the time she manages to get something to eat, she’s starving, and she brings her plate of food upstairs to her room. She’s not feeling sociable. She’s hungry and exhausted and tired of people, so she eats quickly, sticks her plate in the dumbwaiter and sends it down to the kitchen, then showers and goes to bed.

She wakes up early. Surprisingly she slept well, despite the noise of the party, and she gets dressed into her tennis things before she heads downstairs to get breakfast. The house is spick and span and deserted. There’s a note on the fridge. _Meet at the Meadow Club by 9am for tennis!_ It’s seven now. She pours herself a glass of iced coffee and takes it outside to the patio.

It’s a beautiful day, though there’s a promise of humidity in the air in the hazy blue sky. Right now, though, the weather is perfect and she tilts her head back and closes her eyes, enjoying it. She deserves to enjoy this. Her life isn’t over, after all, even though the life that she thought she’d have is. She is still herself. She wasn’t the person who cheated. She shouldn’t feel guilty for ending their relationship in the face of everything he told her… and everything he didn’t.

What else could she have done?

And now, this weekend--this wedding, this celebration of love, and she is alone, she will never have this with Mike, she’s lost this forever. And even though she does have a date to the wedding, and even if she and Archie one day get married, or she marries someone else… it will never be like this. It will never have the ringing certainty, the feeling of rightness, because it won’t be right. Because she won’t be marrying Mike.

‘Good morning!’ she hears someone call to her. She looks up and shades her eyes and sees Beth crossing the lawn. ‘Where is everyone? We’ve got to get going!’

She checks her watch. ‘It’s only seven-thirty, Beth. Your note said to meet at nine.’

‘Yes, to meet _there_ at nine,’ Beth explains with false patience. ‘So everyone should be up and getting ready.’ She sighs and sits down next to her. ‘Well, we have a chance to talk now, the two of us. I know that you’re going through a difficult time but I wanted to make sure that you’re not going to be moping around all weekend. You disappeared last night and people were talking. So if you could just hang in there, keep your chin up, I’d really appreciate it.’

She is suddenly, surprisingly, furious. Well, perhaps not too surprisingly. This is appalling behavior. Beth is hardly in a position to dictate her feelings, even if it is her wedding weekend. She bites her tongue to keep herself from saying something she will regret, and Beth takes her silence as acquiescence.

‘I know that it took Charlie and I three years to get to this point but we have been engaged for over a year now. You and Mike were together… how long? Five years? And nothing ever happened on that front. You shouldn’t have been surprised that you wanted different things. So I really need you to be helpful this weekend, and not just disappear again. Besides being rude to me and your cousin, it was rude to your guest as well.’

She feels a hand on her shoulder. She was so furious she didn’t even hear anyone approach them. Archie says, ‘Mr. and Mrs. Griswold are looking for you, Beth. They’re in the kitchen.’

Beth opens her mouth to say something and Archie continues, ‘Mrs. Griswold said it was very important.’

She stands at last and makes her way back to the house, calling after her, ‘I enjoyed our little talk, Liz, and I’m glad we’re on the same page.’

She looks down at her lap, noting that her hands are clenched tightly together. Archie doesn’t say anything, simply sits down next to her in Beth’s newly unoccupied seat.

‘Ah, the arrogance of the young,’ she says at last, hearing the anger in her voice. ‘Twenty-five years old and she thinks she can dictate everything about anything.’

‘She was out of line,’ Archie says.

‘Yes, she was,’ she agrees. ‘Except she was right--it was rude of me to leave so abruptly last night. It was just--overwhelming--especially after our nice drive. I’m sorry.’

‘I enjoyed it too, and there’s no need to apologize. It was a little out of hand last night.’

‘The whole weekend will be like that,’ she says, silently dreading it. ‘Starting with this tennis tournament this morning. I had no idea we’d be conscripted.’

‘It’s fine,’ he says. ‘But I will admit that I was looking forward to going to the beach at some point this weekend. What would you say if I suggested we lose our first match and we sneak off?’

Some of her anger eases at his grin. ‘I’d like that.’

‘Good,’ he says, standing up. ‘Then that’s what we’ll do. Now, we should probably head over as we don’t want to be subjected to another tongue-lashing.’

She takes the hand he offers her. ‘That’s very true. Let’s go.’

When they arrive at the club, they look at the tournament bracket. They have a bye for the first round, which is a relief, as apparently each pair of mixed doubles has to play in two rounds. They collect cups of coffee and sip them on the porch overlooking the tennis courts. They are among the first of Beth and Charlie’s guests to arrive, but as they finish their coffee more people trickle in. Most look hungover and she and Archie greet friends as they collapse in chairs in the porch, drinking coffee and trying to wake up. It’s an inauspicious beginning.

The matches seem to last forever, even though they are only the best of three sets. When they take their places on the court, she’s struck by an inexplicable lassitude. It’s good, she supposes, because their opponents are some of the worst tennis players she’s ever seen. Her exhaustion at least gives her an excuse to play poorly, and even then they barely lose.

Luckily, Beth is otherwise occupied when they congratulate the winners--friends of Beth’s parents’ from St. Louis--and slip away. She feels like she’s playing hooky from school and it feels wonderful. They speed off in his convertible and head back to the house, which is empty too. Her parents, her aunt and uncle, and Peter and Miranda are out for the day, according to a note her mother left on the kitchen table.

They separate on the second floor to get changed into their swimsuits. She has a bit of a tan from vegetating at Southerly, and she can work on it a bit more this morning. Bearing in mind that her dress is strapless, she chooses her one strapless swimsuit--a one-piece in a very pale pink. She puts it on and stares at herself in the mirror.

Mike liked this swimsuit. ‘Easy access,’ he once said, ‘almost as convenient as a bikini.’ She closes her eyes and she sees him standing in front of her, grinning. Then his smile disappears and he says, ‘She said her place was around the corner and I kissed her.’ She pictures that, him taking Sherri West into his arms and pressing his lips to hers, following her home, his hands on her waist. She sees them in bed together, his body covering hers, when she was at home, alone, terrified that he wouldn’t come back. She remembers hearing his keys in the lock at last, past three in the morning, and the way he wept when he apologized. She thought he was apologizing for their fight.

And then Bermuda. Their last night together. She’d been upset by that proposal they’d witnessed and his obvious negative reaction to it. He’d avoided her the rest of the night, as soon as he could slip away from her, so she’d gone to bed as soon as they got back to the cottage. And he woke her up, his hand warm on her shoulder, his voice urgent. She’d been so tired, and when she opened her eyes he’d kissed her. It wasn’t a warm kiss, or a loving one. It was compelling and demanding and the unfamiliarity of it woke her up. He felt like a stranger. She stopped kissing him.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

‘Please,’ he’d begged, and she’d nodded, feeling off-kilter, like she was dreaming still. He didn’t kiss her again, just pulled off her nightgown. He was already naked and she could feel how aroused he was. Instead of pulling her towards him, or on top of him, he turned her onto her side and laid down next to her and took her from behind. He didn’t talk. He didn’t say her name. He didn’t touch her with love. He thrust into her and it felt so strange, so bizarre, like this was a dream. But it felt like him too, almost, or rather, the explosion of passion felt like it always did with him, the way it was--fulfilling and annihilating all at the same time. When he came, he didn’t say a word. She said his name.

She must have fallen asleep immediately after, but she wasn’t asleep for long. She almost thought that she had dreamt it all, but the sheets were damp with sweat and tangled and she was naked, her nightgown tossed aside. She laid there for a long time, awake and unsettled, while he slept next to her. Finally she climbed out of bed and went to make some tea and just waited for the sun to rise and the day to begin. She thought they’d talk about it later, but they didn’t. They didn’t really talk about anything again.

She opens her eyes. It wouldn’t be like that with Archie. He wouldn’t leave her standing in the middle of nowhere for no reason because he is a gentleman, and he wouldn’t hurt her as much as Mike did because he couldn’t, because even if something develops between them she could never give him her heart the way she gave her heart to Mike.

She steps away from the mirror, collects a sarong from her dresser drawer and ties it mechanically around her waist. How long has she been standing here, thinking about this? Too long, too long. She opens the door to her bedroom and steps into the hallway. The door to the sleeping porch is open and she can hear him inside. Before she thinks about what she’s doing, she walks down the hallway.

He’s reclining on his bed, one arm tucked behind his head, reading a manuscript. He’s in his swim trunks and a linen shirt, the cuffs rolled back, and he looks up at her as she steps into the sleeping porch and smiles.

‘Ready to go for a swim?’ he asks.

She closes the door behind her. He lowers the manuscript. She walks over to him and sits down on the edge of his narrow twin bed, her hip pressing against his. He moves to straighten up but she rests her hand on his chest to stop him, feeling the strong, steady beating of his heart and the warmth of his skin beneath the fabric. She looks into his eyes. He is a kind man, she thinks again, and remembers everything that’s just happened to her. That’s what she needs right now. Kindness.

She bends and touches her lips to his.


	38. Ice Cream

She’s furious with him, and mortified, and guilty. Somehow she manages to behave as though she’s aloof from it all, but she’s not. She can’t believe it. She can’t believe _him_. My God, he was in a relationship with one of their colleagues, for _years_ , and he didn’t think to mention her identity? No, it’s not that he didn’t think to do so--he deliberately did not mention her name. And that was information she should have.

When she gets home she takes a shower and changes and makes dinner, thinking about Dr. Olivet. She’d only been at the DA’s office a few months when news went around that she was raped by her doctor. Some people in her office thought that SVU should have prosecuted, not Stone, and Donnelly particularly had tried to get the case. She remembers that. That was around the time that she and Mike got together.

So they’d slept together after his girlfriend was raped. That makes her feel even worse, somehow. Olivet had needed him and he was with her instead. She feels sick.

And now, or recently… she’d been flirting with him in the interrogation room that day, and Olivet had heard the whole thing, she knows that. At the time, when she’d left and saw her, she’d felt embarrassed because she’d been overheard but now, looking back, Olivet had looked ill. She thought it was because of the perp, but no--it was because she’d just realized her boyfriend had cheated on her.

How long had she and Mike really been broken up? She’s never seen Olivet betray any emotion but she was obviously stricken then. And then when they were at the movies, and Olivet’s friend hadn’t known they’d split…

 _No_ , she thinks. _You have no reason to believe he’s lying to you._

And obviously he hasn’t been cheating on her in the time they’ve been together. They’ve spent almost all their free time together. She would have known. But is that what Olivet thought?

When she gets stressed, she eats. She finishes her omelette and half a pint of Ben & Jerry’s from the freezer, then goes to the bodega to stock up on snacks. This is why she runs--she stress-eats more than is good for her figure, especially with her work, so she’s got to keep it in check somehow. She’s not in college any more.

But tonight calls for stress eating if any night does. And while she’s at the bodega, she picks up a copy of the Ledger so that she can re-read that column about Olivet’s cousin’s wedding.

When she gets home she makes herself an enormous, indulgent hot fudge sundae, warming the fudge on the stove instead of on the microwave, and then reads the rest of the column.

_If you’ve never been to a wedding like this, dears, then you certainly are missing out! Remember Sabrina? It was like one of the Larrabee parties, complete with Lester Lanin himself, endless champagne, oysters, lobsters, dancing, only the best people, beautiful women in beautiful gowns, attractive men in tuxedos… is there anything more divine than a handsome man in a perfectly fitted suit?_

_There’s nothing more romantic than a wedding. Lots of couples, old and new, spent more time off the dance floor and in the shadows than on it, but those who were dancing also took some time to enjoy the moment. The standards, of course, were played--Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra--and everything was bathed in candlelight and the weather was perfect--a truly magical evening._

_After the party was the after-party. The groom has a wide circle of friends, and some of whom were invited were part of a band, I’m told. They certainly were excellent performers even if I didn’t quite “get” the music. Well, we can’t all be Bing Crosby, I suppose. And if we’re going more modern that that, I’d prefer disco. But it wasn’t my wedding, and it was fun too, though this reporter called it a night at one a.m. Suzy had a column to write, after all! There was a midnight breakfast served, and after a delicious omelette I felt I had enough fuel to write all about the delights of the evening for my loyal readers--and it was a delightful evening._

_Congratulations to the bride and groom and thank you for such a wonderful weekend!_

Reading this, about all of this, she can’t picture him there. How could she? He’s not that sort of person. She can’t imagine him dancing with Olivet--she can’t even imagine him wearing a tux, though he would look very handsome in one. There are actually a couple photos of Olivet. One is her laughing up at the guy she’s with. She looks very different than she does at work. Her hair is loose around her bare shoulders and her dress is beautiful and she actually has an expression on her face. Is this the sort of person he saw all the time? She’s stunning, and she’s a beautiful woman anyway, but this--this is a surprise.

There’s another photograph of her, or at least she’s in another photograph, one of all her family members. The names she reads there are familiar from the paper and from donor lists for Schiff’s campaign, that sort of thing, and she’s surprised again. She had no clue. It’s not like she ever wondered about Olivet, but if she had, this wouldn’t have been the background she pictured necessarily. Obviously she had money and good taste, and grew up comfortably, but a wedding like this, on such a big scale--that’s not just comfortable. She would have thought their backgrounds were more similar and that her nice things came from working in private practice. She didn’t think someone like Olivet would have gone to work for the city.

They’re supposed to meet next week over this case, this little girl and her uncle… how is she supposed to face her, knowing what she knows now? Should she apologize? Should she ignore it? How the hell is Olivet meeting with her, giving her advice about her _boyfriend_ , when she knows that she was the person Mike had slept with? And--oh, God, does she know that she and Mike are together now? No, she assures herself quickly. There’s no way. And yet, even though she knows about them now, Olivet still gave her advice. She’s a good person. She’s not the spoiled, manipulative brat that Mike described.

Olivet had loved him. That’s a shock, that she could unbend enough to love someone like Mike. But she had loved him and wanted to marry him, according to Mike and Mike’s nephew. She’d had no idea they were together. Was that their decision or his or hers? Mike’s reputation was so… known, too, that surely it wasn’t hers? Surely she would have wanted to stake her claim to him publicly? If she’d wanted to get married…

Mike’s been honest with her, she thinks. At least, he’s definitely been honest about what he wants out of a relationship. She’s been honest with him, too. But this has thrown her for a loop.

What did he say? That they were together for years. Years! My God. They’d hidden their relationship for years. And he said that he thought that he’d loved her, but he was wrong. Four years together and he didn’t love her… or did he? Whatever he felt for her, he felt enough for her to stay with her for _years_.

She should apologize to Olivet. Maybe not tell her that she and Mike are together now, but… she should apologize. She owes her that much, at least. Doesn’t she?

She’s finished her ice cream sundae and she kind of wants another one, even though she’s full. But she feels guilty still. As she should, she supposes, even though she didn’t know he was seeing someone at the time. But still.

She stands up and goes to make another sundae.


	39. Keep That Breathless Charm

It feels strange to be sitting next to him after their day together. They’d kissed. They’d gone a bit further, too, before being interrupted by the arrival of the rest of her family. No one caught them, but now she’s unsure how anyone could fail to notice the change between them.

He was a good kisser. He made her feel… different than Mike. It wasn’t like a wildfire raging through her--it was like slipping into a hot bath, comfortable, easy, satisfying. And now she’s sitting next to him, his knee pressing against hers, and she feels herself blushing even though no one can tell they’re touching.

He helped her dress this evening for the rehearsal dinner. His hands on her waist… his lips on her neck… she shifts in her seat. It feels so strange to be wanting someone else, but after all these dreams about Mike, and it’s been so long now… 

‘You look very beautiful tonight,’ he tells her, leaning over to whisper in her ear. She feels her flush deepen. She does feel beautiful. She likes the pale green column of silk that she’s wearing. The dress is fastened at one shoulder and falls straight down to her feet. She’s wearing her big pearl pendant earrings she loves and she does feel good. It feels nice to be… desired, wanted, and not rejected.

‘Thank you,’ she says, and takes a sip of her champagne.

The toasts are over, thank God--they’re so difficult to sit through, listening to her cousin’s exploits and his relationship with Beth, their engagement, the day to come tomorrow… it is painful to listen to someone else’s love story when hers has ended so horribly. At least the dinner was delicious, and now they are waiting for dessert.

The rehearsal dinner is almost as lavish as she expects tomorrow’s wedding will be, although on a smaller scale. There are only a hundred guests tonight as opposed to tomorrow’s two hundred and fifty, but the band is playing, and here is Archie, asking if she’d like to dance. And here she is, saying yes, taking his hand, stepping into his arms. She catches her parents exchanging a look of approval. She looks away from them and up at Archie.

‘You’ve a very good dancer,’ she says as he steers her around the dance floor. She’s an independent woman--the dance floor is the only place she’ll follow. And Archie is a good dancer. She’s used to dancing primarily with Nicky, then with the men she’s related to, but it’s easy to dance with Archie. She’s not used to dancing with Mike. He doesn’t like to dance unless they go out to a nightclub, so if he was here with her instead she’d have to beg and cajole him to dance just once with her.

Her life was missing a lot of things she enjoyed, she realizes. She didn’t think about them at the time, or not often. He enriched her life so much, or she felt he did. But now… she put a lot of things aside for him, because he was uncomfortable with them. Her friends. Dancing. Going on exciting, expensive, far-flung vacations. Going to her club for dinner. Discussing their future. Obviously some of those things aren’t important--dancing, for one, the vacations, the clubs--but it’s indicative of a larger issue that she’s just beginning to see. She gave up a lot for him; what did he give up for her? He still had his friends, his sports. They did things that he wanted to do, they found places where he felt comfortable, and yes, on occasion he’d do something that she wanted to do, but--but it wasn’t fairly divided. She gave up all these things for him so that she could have him in her life and have him be _happy_ and he couldn’t even tell her that he loved her.

Relationships require sacrifices. She knew that; she accepted that; she made the sacrifices he required willingly because she wanted to be with him. She wanted him to be happy. But what did he sacrifice for her? He gave up nothing. He flirted with other women, she knew that, she witnessed that! He did it all the time and he didn’t seem to care if she was present or not. He didn’t want to make their relationship known to their colleagues and work friends because he “didn’t want to share something that was private and give people somethin’ to gossip about.” And he didn’t even remain faithful to her. So what did he give up for her?

She’s afraid, now, that the answer was nothing. He gave up nothing.

The song ends and she meets Archie’s gaze. ‘Another dance?’ he asks. ‘Or would you prefer dessert?’

‘Do you think anyone would notice if we went back to the house?’ she asks him. ‘It would be nice to be alone.’

‘I don’t think anyone will notice, but aren’t your cousins’ children there?’

She nods. ‘You’re right. Well--’

‘We could go to the beach,’ he suggests. ‘We still haven’t made it there today.’

She smiles. ‘All right. Let’s go.’

The moon is almost full as she sneaks out of the house to wait for him on the patio. They stopped to change out of their formal attire into bathing suits and she grabbed towels and a beach blanket as she left the house. The children are sleeping in the attic and the babysitter was on the sofa in the living room, asleep too. He slides the door open a minute or so later, carrying a bottle of champagne and two glasses. She laughs, a bit nervous, and he grins.

‘I thought it would be nice,’ he says. ‘Ready?’

‘I’m ready.’ After a moment, she reaches her hand out to grasp his. He squeezes tight for a moment before she pulls him down the path to the beach.

When they reach the beach, he says, ‘Let’s open the champagne.’

She nods and sets the towels down. He kneels in the sand, sticking the glasses upright. She sits next to him, watching him.

 _I’m going to sleep with him,_ she thinks giddly as he pops open the champagne. He is so capable, and kind, and God--she is just… in need of warmth and tenderness and affection. She feels anxious and aroused but for a moment she wishes desperately that this is just a dream, that she’ll wake up and be in bed with Mike. The moment doesn’t pass, but she forcibly takes herself away from it. That part of her life is over. She accepts the glass he pours for her and looks at him.

‘Here’s to you, Liz,’ he says. ‘You’re an incredible woman.’

She giggles nervously--she is feeling a little drunk, and not just from the champagne she’s imbibed, but from the night, the romance of it, from being on the beach with him beneath the moon. ‘Thank you.’

He touches his glass to hers and she takes a sip, the bubbles bursting on her tongue, the wine adding to the warmth spreading low. She sets the glass down and leans forward to kiss him again.

This kiss is even better than the kisses they shared this morning. He is strong but gentle and she is enjoying the feel of his body against hers. She’s already aroused, but the feeling of his desire for her makes her more desperate for him. He runs one hand down her back, slipping it beneath the edge of her bathing suit, and she gasps into his mouth.

‘Is this okay?’ he asks her, his breathing clearly affected.

She nods, words almost beyond her. ‘Please.’

He smiles at her, strokes a lock of hair back from her face, and says, ‘Wait just a minute.’ She does, impatiently, as he spreads out the beach blanket. Finally satisfied, he looks at her. ‘Are you sure this is what you want?’ he asks--not a criticism, not something to make her feel bad, but he’s asking for her permission. He’s making sure she’s all right.

‘Yes,’ she tells him. ‘This is what I want.’

He smiles at her and holds out his hand. She hesitates for a moment, then takes it, and lets him pull her onto the blanket.

She wakes up feeling slightly embarrassed at her behavior last night. Having sex on the beach with someone she doesn’t know if she’s serious about… that feels out of character. But Archie was gentle and considerate and obviously cared deeply about her. And… well, it was good. It was so strange to be intimate with someone other than Mike, especially after the fall of 1992. But it was a positive step forward, she knows, to be able to trust someone else like that and to put another body as a buffer between her memories of Mike’s. Not that that was all that this was, but it was part of it.

He spent the night in his bed on the sleeping porch after they made love and went for a swim. She wanted some time to herself; she also didn’t want there to be gossip. Not yet.

Today is the wedding. The ceremony is not until four this afternoon and thankfully her cousins’ children are attendants, as well as her cousins and their wives. The wedding party will be getting ready at the Meadow Club, so the house will be empty except for her parents, Peter, Miranda, and Archie. It’s a relief.

She lies in bed and listens to the sound of her family getting ready to leave for the day. She can hear the children running upstairs, hear their parents trying to cajole them, and hear the thump of bags of clothes and makeup brought downstairs. As she listens to these preparations from bed, someone knocks on her door. She sighs and climbs out of bed reluctantly, pulling on her robe before she opens the door. To her surprise, it’s Archie, carrying a tray laden with food.

‘Room service,’ he says, and she smiles at him. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Please,’ she says, holding open the door for him before shutting it behind him. ‘You’re very thoughtful.’

‘I thought you might be hungry,’ he says. ‘Would you like to eat in bed or at the window seat?’

‘Mm, the window seat,’ she decides. He nods and brings the tray over, setting it down before pouring her coffee.

‘Milk or sugar?’ he asks.

‘Milk, please,’ she tells him. After a moment, he hands her a cup and she takes a sip, watching as he prepares his tea. ‘You don’t like coffee?’ she asks.

He smiles. ‘I prefer tea. My mother’s influence. She may have left Dublin at twenty when she met and married my father, but she’s never given up her Irishness. Have you been to Ireland?’

‘Yes,’ she says shortly, not wanting to remember it. But he looks startled. She softens her tone. ‘It’s a beautiful country. I just--I went with my--with the--with my ex-boyfriend. His father was born there. We visited his family.’

‘I see,’ he says. ‘Well, it is a beautiful country, and I hope you had a good visit even if the memories now are painful.’

‘I did,’ she says, the coffee tasting sour in her mouth now at the memories of that trip crowding her mind. His presence beside her, driving through the country, the promises they made, his body and its relation to hers and the feel of him touching her… she sets her cup of coffee down, her appetite suddenly gone.

‘Are you all right?’ he asks her.

‘I’m fine,’ she says, her voice brittle with her attempt to keep from crying. ‘Just not hungry, all of the sudden.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’ he asks.

She shakes her head. ‘No, I’m sorry. Why don’t we go for a swim in a little while, or play some tennis?’

‘Good idea. Why don’t we play a match first, then go for a swim to cool off?’

She smiles. ‘All right. I’ll meet you on the court in twenty minutes.’

‘Perfect,’ he says. He kisses her cheek before standing and taking the tray away.

She’s at least rid herself of her anxious energy by the time lunch ends and they all go upstairs to shower and dress for the wedding. The tennis match was a close one, which she eventually won, and their swim was wonderful too. Her parents joined them, and Miranda, while Peter was recruited by the bride to procure some strange last-minute items from the house and drive them to the club.

She’s showered now, and blow-dried her hair, and has applied a little bit of makeup and her perfume. She’s put on her underwear--white lace, so that there are no lines visible when she puts on the organdy dress--and now she’s sitting in her robe on her bed, staring at the dress. It has a long row of buttons up the back and she will need help. Should she ask her mother or Miranda, or should she ask Archie?

Archie, she decides. She stands up and makes her way to her door, opening it. She’s glad again that the house is almost empty. Even so, she sneaks down the hall to the sleeping porch and raps lightly on the door. He opens the door a minute later. He’s almost dressed--he just needs to put on his jacket--and he smiles at her.

‘Can you help me with my dress?’ she asks.

‘Of course,’ he says, and follows her back to her room. He closes the door behind them and before she can take the dress out of the closet, he takes her into his arms and kisses her. The kiss is a deep, sensuous one and she doesn’t want to stop kissing him, suddenly, her body thrumming with need again.

‘I’ve wanted to do that all day,’ he admits, pulling back from her. She kisses him again, guiding his hands to her waist. He takes it from there, guiding her back to her bed. She pulls him down on top of her.

She has to redo her makeup, and he needs to iron his shirt again, but it’s worth it. They join her parents in good time, thank God, so there aren’t any questions about how they spent their afternoon. It was extremely pleasant. Her parents and Peter and Miranda offer them a ride, but Archie declines for them, saying that if they don’t mind, he’d like to take her himself. Her parents exchange a smile with each other and she blushes, then takes Archie’s hand. It’s a declaration that they are… together? That their relationship has progressed, certainly. She squeezes his hand and lets him guide her out of the house.


	40. Was the gamble worth the price?

He can’t believe she’s sleeping with someone else already. Jesus Christ. He thought that she loved him, and she’s fucking someone else. She doesn’t do that! She’s not him. She shouldn’t be doing this. She should be… waiting for him, trying to get him back, something! Not this!

He ignores a call from Sherri when she calls him at the precinct on Monday. He… can’t, right now, he can’t deal with her when he’s trying to get his head around this, that she’s sleeping with someone else--let alone letting him spend the night at her apartment!

He doesn’t know how to deal with this. He doesn’t know how to let her do this without freaking out. She’s not supposed to do this. She’s supposed to love him. He just needed a little bit of time! Jesus! He just needed some time and she should have _waited_ because they were supposed to be together, that’s how it’s supposed to be, and she shouldn’t be fucking it up by fucking someone else--!

He’s gotta talk to her. It’s too late--she ruined it--but still, if he has the chance, he can talk to her, he can try to see if they can figure out a way to fix what went wrong, can’t they? Or is it even worth trying to get back together? What’s the point? It’s just gonna fall apart again. And was she even worth that? Yeah, she was a really good fuck. But she’s not the only good fuck out there. Sherri is, too, even if she’s not on the same level. And Liz wants things that he just can’t give her. An engagement ring. A wedding. Kids.

Kids. He’d thought they’d have kids but how the hell could he ever, ever have a kid? How could he be a dad? He’d never be there and he’d end up hurting them, and her, and--well, it’s impossible to think about, isn’t it? A kid with her, a kid who he’d never be able to relate to, or see eye-to-eye with, and--and, God, she’d be the best mother, and the thought of that…

 _No_ , he thinks. _That’s not gonna happen. That’s never gonna happen._

His phone rings again--Sherri again. They make plans to meet for dinner tomorrow night instead of tonight. She’s working late. He’s not--his shift ends at four--but he just needs some time alone. If Sherri was Liz, he’d bring her dinner, distract her from her paperwork. But she’s not, and he doesn’t want to do that. What does he want to do? He wants to get her back. He just wants one last night with her. He doesn’t want to lose her. He just wants to be done with wanting her and move on. He just wants--he just wants her.

He misses her so much. He misses her more than he thought he’d ever be able to miss someone. And the thought of her with someone else makes him want to vomit. It’s not fair. It’s not fair.

When he finally gets home, he can’t decide what to do. Should he call her? Should he go over there? Should he go find that Archie guy and beat him up? He could do that. He should do that. He should at least find out where he lives and go to see him and tell him--what?

He finds his phone book and looks up his name. **Newbold, Archibald. 212-555-6259. 950 5th Ave., #7.**

That’s… a really good address, he thinks. 79th and Fifth, damn, right by the Met, only a couple blocks from Liz… the kind of place he’d never be able to give her. The kind of place he’d never want to live. Hell, he barely felt comfortable in her white-glove building after four years. If she’d wanted more space, to move to a different building like hers… he’d never be able to do that. But if she and this Archie guy shack up, they’d probably move to his place. Living across the street from the Park would be better for kids. And she wants kids.

If she’s sleeping with this guy already, how long is it gonna take before they get married? She doesn’t just fuck around like he does. If she’s sleeping with him, it’s because she’s serious about him. Who is he? Did she hang out with him when they were together? Is she gonna run headlong into this because this is the kind of guy she deserves and could actually build a life with? Is he gonna be sitting here next year and be reading about their wedding? Is he gonna open the paper for the rest of his life and be assaulted with details of her life with him, their children, the life that he could have had with her?

But the thing is, he was never gonna have this life with her. Not like this. He’d never give her this, and he knows that she would miss it. That she did miss it. Sometimes she’d want to do something but he really hated hanging out with most of her friends, and never felt comfortable at the events she wanted to go to--the weddings and the opening nights at the opera and all that shit, and he tried really hard to get out of that. He’d sometimes schedule shifts so that he’d have to cancel. He never told her that. He doesn’t know if she knows or not, but she must have suspected, right? She’s smart and he made no secret of how little he liked these things.

He’s gonna go for a run. He’ll run past that guy’s building and check it out, then go around the Reservoir. That’s what he’ll do.

He’s halfway through his third lap when some asshole jostles his elbow as he passes him and he looks up to see a flash of a profile that looks vaguely familiar. The guy doesn’t notice him, and he speeds up a bit to notice what he’s wearing--expensive running stuff, nice watch--and as he levels with him again, he sees that it’s Liz’s new guy. He’s not sure how they ended up in the same place at the same time but right now he’s thanking God for this.

‘Hey, asshole,’ he hears himself say. He doesn’t respond or look at him. ‘I’m talking to you,’ he says, and reaches out to hit Archie’s shoulder. This time he stops and looks at him.

‘I’m sorry?’ the prick says, and he looks at him, this smug privileged asshole who doesn’t even know what the hell he has. He’s shorter than him by an inch or so, and a lot thinner, so this should be easy.

‘You knocked into me when you were passing and didn’t even bother to apologize,’ he snarls. He can’t believe it. This stupid fuck--this guy who is with Liz now--is right here, and he’s given him a giftwrapped excuse for getting in his face. ‘What d’you think, pricks like you own the path? The Park is for everyone.’

Archie holds up his hands in surrender. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t even notice. I apologize.’

People are stopping to look at them now but he doesn’t give a damn. ‘Yeah, jackasses like you never notice when you crush the little people, isn’t that right? Just grit beneath the wheels of your Jag. It doesn’t matter if you have money--you can just throw it at the problem. Well, that’s not how it works.’ He’s backed Archie up against the railing around the reservoir now, so he can’t move. He feels exactly the way he felt before he punched that asshole councilman, how he feels before landing that last hit that knocks an opponent down. It feels so good, this moment before the punch, this moment where he has all the power.

There’s panic in his eyes and that feels so goddamn amazing. This stupid shit should be scared. ‘Look, I’m very sorry--’

He punches him. Hard. His fist connects with the asshole’s nose and he feels it break and he thinks, satisfied, _at least Liz isn’t gonna be kissing this guy any more._

‘Jesus!’ the guy says, his voice muffled, bending over. ‘What the hell?’

‘I’m going to get the police!’ a man in the crowd announces.

‘I am the police, asshole,’ he says, flashing his badge. Then he leaves. No one stops him.

By the time he gets back to his apartment he feels sick to his stomach. What the fuck did he do? He ran into Liz’s new guy and he decked him because he’s furious that she’s fucking someone else and because the guy she’s fucking is someone who’s an infinitely better match for her than he is. Jesus Christ. At least no one knows watching that knew who he was. He’s already in so much trouble with work that that would really just be the icing on top of the cake. And he doesn’t want that to get back to Liz. He doesn’t want her to know that what she’s doing is bothering him. She’s not supposed to have any affect on him anymore.

He still wants her. He’s so fucking tired of this. He doesn’t want to be with her forever but he wants her right now and wants to be with her right now and he’s tired of wanting her like this, endlessly, because whatever else he does he just finds himself bewitched by her, enraptured, enthralled. And he hates those words and what they mean because he’s afraid he’s never, ever gonna be free of her, no matter what happens. No matter what he does.

He’s gonna go talk to her. Maybe they can just… pick up where they left off. He showers and gets dressed in slacks and a nice shirt and blazer and walks over to her apartment. He stops on the corner of 76th Street across from her building and looks up to her windows. The lights are off. She’s not home yet. He checks his watch. Seven forty-six. She should be home. Maybe she’s meeting that prick for dinner.

And then he sees her. She’s turning from Madison onto 76th and even though he’s a block away he knows it’s her because he would know her anywhere. As she gets closer he sees the slump of her shoulders and how absolutely exhausted and… disappointed she looks. She’s dressed nicely, not in her work clothes, and while he’s glad that the prick obviously stood her up, he feels bad that she’s feeling this awful.

 _Look up!_ he thinks, wanting to call out to her. No. She has to look up on her own. _Look up, Lizzie. Please, Lizzie, please._

She’s drawing level with him and she turns, walking to the service door to her building. She leans against the doorjamb and rummages through her purse for her keys. She finds them and she unlocks the door and then she’s gone. He waits and watches as the lights turn on in her apartment and he sees her once more when she draws the curtains. She doesn’t see him.

He finally heads home. It really doesn’t matter any more.


	41. Isn't It Romantic?

Archie doesn’t leave her side throughout the wedding or the cocktail hour. She’s glad of it. There are so many people in attendance and so many of them come up to greet her. Some--most--are obviously curious about Archie’s presence instead of Mike’s. Archie stays with her and she’s relieved, so relieved. He keeps his arm around her shoulders or her waist or holds her hand and she feels supported.

At dinner, they are seated with her parents, Peter and Miranda, and Audrey and Charlie, to her delight. It’s wonderful to catch up with her friend, and Charlie and Archie are friends. Archie was the editor for Charlie’s latest collection of short stories, and of course he and Audrey work together. There are endless toasts and lots of wine, thank goodness, and by the time the toasts are over she’s feeling the slightest bit tipsy.

Dinner is a clambake, delicious but completely impracticable for a black tie wedding. She eats carefully, trying not to splatter melted butter for her lobster everywhere. She is starving and the food is delicious--she has a lobster, more than a dozen oysters, corn on the cob, and roasted potatoes. It’s an absolutely perfect dinner, even with the mess, and it’s been fun to sit next to Archie and feel his knee pressing against hers throughout the dinner. It’s nice to have that comfort and silent show of support.

She and Audrey excuse themselves after dinner to go to the powder room and freshen up. She needs to wash her hands, which she does after she uses the bathroom quickly. As she dries her hands, Audrey says, ‘You and Archie seem to get along very well. He’s nice, isn’t he?’

‘He’s very nice,’ she agrees. She’s grateful for Audrey’s tactfulness, for her avoidance of the elephant in the room. ‘A good conversationalist.’

‘Yes, I always enjoy his contributions at meetings, and he’s a good person to invite to a dinner party. He’s also been an excellent editor for Charlie’s latest work. I’m glad they could work together.’

‘Mm,’ she agrees. ‘Yes. I liked his collection. It’s his best one yet, I think.’

‘Thank you,’ Audrey says, and pauses. ‘Liz--if you want to talk, I’m here.’

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I’m fine.’ The band starts to play again. ‘Let’s go back out. I think it might be time for dancing.’

It is. The first dance for the bride and groom--to “Just the Way You Look Tonight”--occurred before dinner. She used to like that song. Mike used to like that song. That was the song, if they heard it when they were out, that they used to dance to. He’d suggest it, the only time he’d ever suggest they dance together, and he used to sing to her, softly, as they danced… she’s proud that she managed to get through that without crying. She thought that, if they got married, they’d dance to that song.

When she and Audrey reach their table, Archie and Charlie are there alone. She sees her parents and godparents on the dance floor; the band is playing “It Had to be You.” Both Archie and Charlie stand when she and Audrey reach the table.

Archie smiles at her and says, ‘Would you like to dance?’

‘I’d love to,’ she says, and takes his hand.

By the time they reach the dance floor, “It Had to be You” is over and “Isn’t It Romantic” begins to play. Archie takes her hand in his and rests his other hand on her lower back, pulling her close.

‘Very appropriate, I think, considering we met on the North Shore,’ he says, and she laughs. It’s nice to share the same references--Mike had watched _Sabrina_ with her, yes, but he’d fallen asleep halfway through--and know that they enjoy the same things. And as she laughs, a camera flashes, and they look over to see the gossip columnist photographer who had been taking photographs all weekend.

“Suzy”, the famous gossip columnist, grins at them. ‘So, darlings, please tell me there’s a backstory behind your lovely little ménage.’

‘Well, we used to play together as children,’ Archie tells her. ‘On the North Shore. So if you don’t mind, this song is one we’d like to dance to.’

“Suzy” actually claps her hands in delight. ‘I adore it. Enjoy yourselves, darlings!’

Archie pulls her away, further onto the dance floor. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ he says in her ear. ‘I thought it best to control the story. She’ll certainly write about us in her column.’

That’s right, she thinks. “Suzy” will, of course. She’s been written about before, and Archie is certainly “news,” especially considering his mother has a title. Americans love that. She knew, really, that she’d be mentioned in some of the wedding coverage, even if it was only Quest. But if she’ll be mentioned in Suzy Says, Mike will see it.

 _Good_ , she thinks, suddenly and savagely. _He doesn’t own me. He gave me up. If it hurts him to see me with someone else, it’s his own damn fault. And I hope it does hurt him._

‘You’re very clever,’ she tells Archie, who smiles down at her.

‘Mm, you inspire me,’ he tells her. She feels herself blushing, and his smile widens. The song begins its last verse and he pulls her closer. She squeezes his hand and rests her chin on his shoulder. ‘Do you mean that I will fall in love, perchance?’ he whispers in her ear, singing the last line of the song. She pulls back and looks up at him. His smile has vanished now and he looks very serious. Before she can say anything--and she has no idea what to say--he kisses her softly.

She kisses him back.

They dance for a long time. She dances with other people too--her cousins, her father, Peter, Charlie--but she dances mostly with Archie. And it’s lovely. It’s wonderful. Dancing with him is different than dancing with Nicky because there is something between her and Archie, because he touches her with desire and not brotherly affection. Dancing with him is different, too, than dancing with Mike, who hated to dance like this. Archie seems to relish holding her close. She relished it too. The feeling of him holding her, of being held, of someone so obviously enjoying her presence outside of in their bed… she feels guilty for a moment, that she can enjoy this when she is still in love with Mike, but then Archie kisses her temple and she pushes the guilt away again. She has nothing to feel guilty about.

They leave when the music devolves from the classics to popular music. He hasn’t had much to drink, unlike her--she feels warmed and a little tipsy from the champagne she’s drunk. He helps her into the car, but as he leans down to close the door for her she grabs his lapels and brings him down for a kiss. It’s deep and passionate and by the time they pull apart she’s glad they’re only a two-minute drive from the house because right now--

‘God, Liz--’ he says, panting. ‘You can’t do this to me.’

She laughs and releases him. ‘Drive fast.’

It takes five minutes to get from the club back to her bedroom and those five minutes seem to last a year. She sits on her hands to keep from touching him; he keeps glancing over at her during the mile drive and she can’t take her eyes off him. Being with him, having sex with him, is so different than being with Mike and that’s a relief to her, that it’s so different, that he is so different. Being with Mike was--

Stop it, she tells herself. They’ve reached her bedroom now and she locks the door behind them, then steps over to Archie. He’s smiling at her.

‘Can you help me with my dress, please?’ she asks him.

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ he says, and she smiles at him. He comes up behind her and begins to unbutton the long row of buttons, kissing her back, trailing kisses lower as he unbuttons her dress. He is so gentle, so loving, and by the time her dress is off she is trembling.

‘Archie,’ she says softly, and he kisses her shoulder.

‘Yes, darling?’

She doesn’t know what to say, all of the sudden, in the face of his obvious affection. ‘You’re overdressed,’ she says at last, and turns in his arms to push his dinner jacket off his shoulders.

She doesn’t open her eyes right away when she wakes up. She can feel his arm over her waist, his breath on her neck, and it feels different and so, so strange to be waking up with someone else. She didn’t dream about Mike last night. She didn’t dream at all. She opens her eyes.

It’s early. The sun is still rising and the house is quiet. Even the children are asleep. She shifts slightly in bed and turns to look at him. He looks so peaceful. He is a quiet sleeper, unlike Mike, and while it feels strange to be in bed with him it feels… it feels good, too. She’ll admit it.

He has been gentle and tender and loving and it’s clear to her that he does have a great deal of affection for her. She does for him. It’s just--she doesn’t know what she can give him. She doesn’t know what she can accept from him.

They’re driving home this morning. Her parents are staying here for the rest of the summer and she plans to join them this weekend. She hates being in the city on a summer weekend. Maybe she’ll see if Archie wants to join her.

Despite the difficult parts of the weekend--and there were many--she’s enjoyed spending time with him, getting to know him better, and she’s glad that she was able to move on physically from Mike. It still feels so strange to be sharing a bed with someone else, but that’s the way it will be for the rest of her life. And it was strange with Mike, too, the first few months of their relationship. This will pass.

She eases out of bed. She has to use the bathroom, then she needs coffee. She’ll bring some up for Archie, too. She turns back and looks at him for a moment. His dark red hair is tousled and his slim, muscled body is barely covered by the sheet. He is very handsome. He’s just not Mike. But no one will ever be Mike again, not even Mike himself, she thinks sadly. The person she loved didn’t exist. And the one who had shared her bed for four years… well, she had loved a stranger.

Archie… she could, perhaps, love him. In time. It won’t be the same, but…

She turns away.


	42. Something inside is telling me that I've got your secret

She just… she can’t do it. She can’t confront her about it--she feels sick to her stomach. But she knows that she has to. She has to apologize.

She’s glad that she’s at her own apartment this morning, without him, because she knows that she’s nervous and that he’d be able to tell. She spends almost an hour trying to get ready, trying on different outfits. She wants to look professional and irreproachable. She finally decides on the charcoal grey skirt suit with a white silk blouse beneath it. It’s a nicer outfit than she’d normally wear outside of court, but she feels confident in it. She needs that confidence. She’s meeting Dr. Olivet this morning at eleven, after Olivet interviews the uncle again. It’s not the right time to talk about it, she knows, but when else will she have the chance?

She will be observing the interview. She knows that Olivia wants to talk to her--them both--beforehand. This guy is the reason why they all work in this field--to protect people, to lock these bastards up. And this guy deserves to rot in hell for what he’s done.

Olivet is already there by the time she arrives, even though she’s early. She’s sitting at Olivia’s desk and she takes a moment to observe her before she’s noticed. It feels like she’s seeing her for the first time.

Her head is bent and she’s writing in a notebook, but she can see her profile clearly. She really is such a beautiful woman, she thinks. She is stunning. Her auburn hair is pulled into a French braid and tied at the nape of her neck with a pale blue silk ribbon. She’s wearing a matching blouse tucked into slim black pants. She’s wearing small gold earrings and a very nice Cartier tank watch with a black leather band. Her makeup, if she has any on, is skillfully applied so that she looks like she isn’t wearing any. She is so completely different from the sort of person she’d thought Mike was involved with that it seems impossible to believe him. She’s so prim and proper, like a porcelain doll. And Mike was--she blushes. She can’t imagine Olivet ever giving herself up to passion, let alone with him. He was very… vigorous. Wouldn’t he break her?

She steps into the squad room. Olivia is walking to her desk and Olivet is looking up at her, asking her a question. Olivia responds. It’s time to work. She walks over to them and watches at Olivet’s expression tightens when she notices her. She would never have noticed if she didn’t know what she knew now.

‘He’s in the interrogation room,’ Olivia says. ‘Are you ready? Sherri, we’ll watch from outside.’

‘All right,’ Olivet says. ‘I’m ready.’

Listening to the interview--the third one Olivet’s conducted with this bastard--she’s surprised again by how composed she is in the face of this evil. He is a truly evil person, she believes. She’s glad that their only interaction will be either across a table at Riker’s or in the courtroom. She can’t imagine how Olivet can sit here for hours, listening to this disgusting man… 

When she finishes, she stands up and raps sharply on the door. Olivia opens it--it’s her turn now--and Olivet steps calmly out of the room, bolting as soon as the door closes behind her. She makes her way to the bathroom and she follows, unsure what else she should do. Olivet is faster than she; by the time she joins her in the ladies’ room she can hear the sounds of vomiting. She leans against the sinks and waits for her.

When Olivet emerges, her face is pale and her hands are shaking. She is obviously surprised to see her, though she doesn’t say anything until she’s washed her hands and face.

‘Are you all right?’ she asks.

Olivet busies herself with drying her hands. ‘Fine. People like that, though--’

‘I wanted to apologize,’ she says quickly, and catches Olivet’s startled glance. This isn’t the right way to go about this, but they have a few minutes of privacy and she needs to say this. ‘I wasn’t aware… you and Mike Logan, I--I wasn’t aware he was in a relationship. Years ago. But I’m sorry.’

Olivet’s face has gone even paler, if possible. ‘Why now?’ she asks.

‘I found out recently. About you. And that you found out. So--I thought this would be the right time to… apologize to you.’ God, she feels like an idiot, stammering this out. She’s a prosecutor, she graduated top of her class from law school, and faced with this woman, her boyfriend’s ex, she feels herself going to pieces.

Olivet is obviously feeling the same way. She grips the edge of the sink tightly, her knuckles going white, and she looks down at the ground. What is she thinking?

‘We kept our relationship private,’ she says at last, finally looking up at her. ‘So I’m not sure how you know. Unless he told you.’ She doesn’t respond. ‘Did he tell you?’ Olivet asks her.

She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t know what to say, honestly. She hadn’t bargained on Olivet figuring it out, though that was stupid of her. Olivet is a smart woman, and this isn’t that complex a problem.

Olivet’s eyes search hers. ‘The boyfriend you spoke to me about… that was him. Wasn’t it?’

She doesn’t want to confirm it, but she does, nodding briefly. Something in Olivet’s eyes shutters closed. If this is what she’s like, how did she and Mike stay together for so long? When he gets angry, he is open about it. She obviously shuts down, withdraws.

‘Ms. West.’ Olivet stops. She doesn’t know what to say either, it appears.

‘I am sorry,’ she says at last. ‘I know you loved him. That you wanted to marry him, but he didn’t--I mean--I didn’t mean--’

‘Did he tell you that, too?’ she asks, interrupting her. Her voice is bitter. She nods again, slowly, and Olivet closes her eyes. ‘I’d like a few minutes alone. Please tell Olivia and Elliott I’ll be out in a minute.’

She nods, but Olivet’s eyes are still closed. ‘Okay,’ she says. Her heart is pounding. Olivet is still standing there, gripping the sink, one hand now raised to cover her eyes. She leaves, and as the bathroom door swings closed behind her she thinks she hears a single, heartbreaking sob.

She must have been mistaken, she thinks, when Olivet joins them a few minutes later. She looks as though she’s never felt any emotion in her life. Olivet gives her conclusions dispassionately, professionally, and after answering questions from Elliott and Olivia she leaves.

Her hands are shaking, she notes, as she tries to focus on Elliott and Olivia. She doesn’t know what she expected would happen, but that wasn’t it. It went as well as it could have, she supposes. She didn’t cry or scream or accuse her of anything. But she didn’t give her any information, either, and she realizes that that was what she was searching for. She sighs.

She’s supposed to have dinner with Mike tonight but she can’t do that, she can’t see him and have to deal with this, the way that she looked and the things she’d said to Olivet… when she gets back to Hogan Place she’ll call him and put him off until this weekend, when they’re supposed to go up to Rhinebeck. She’ll deal with it later.


	43. Smithereens

It’s a horrible day from the start, especially compared to how pleasant Sunday was. She and Archie had a leisurely start to Sunday--breakfast in bed, a swim, then a pleasant drive back to Manhattan. He spent the evening with her and they ordered in and made love before he left. It felt strange enough making love with someone else in their--her--bed. Waking up with him there would have been even more unsettling.

Interviewing this man again, this horrible, horrible abuser, was sickening enough to ruin her day before she even reached the precinct. And sitting across from him, feeling his presence pollute the room… is it any wonder that she’s vomiting now, again, sickened from what he told her? He was eager for a listener, someone to hear all his depraved fantasies and deeds… she is sick again.

When she finally feels like she won’t throw up again, she stands up, flushes the toilet, and exits the bathroom stall. Sherri West is standing there and she flinches before she can stop herself. Sherri doesn’t say anything, so she steps over to the sink and washes her hands, turning the water on as hot as it can go. When she’s drying her hands, the other woman speaks.

‘Are you all right?’ she asks.

She tries to forget that this is Sherri West speaking to her. ‘Fine. People like that, though--’

‘I wanted to apologize,’ Sherri interrupts. She glances up at her, surprised. The other woman is obviously struggling with something--her usual air of cool competence isn’t present. She bursts out, ‘I wasn’t aware… you and Mike Logan, I--I wasn’t aware he was in a relationship. Years ago. But I’m sorry.’

She feels her heart stop and all the blood drain from her face. She doesn’t want to be here. She doesn’t, can’t, be here. This is a nightmare. ‘Why now?’ she manages.

‘I found out recently. About you. And that you found out. So--I thought this would be the right time to… apologize to you.’

She is going to faint. Her knees start to buckle. She grasps the edge of the sink to keep herself upright. She found out recently? How? And then it hits her. She is the woman Mike is seeing now. When she had asked her for advice about her boyfriend… it was Mike. She was sleeping with Mike. She was dating Mike. Wasn’t she?

‘We kept our relationship private,’ she says at last, finally looking up at her. Sherri looks nervous. ‘So I’m not sure how you know. Unless he told you.’ The other woman doesn’t respond. ‘Did he tell you?’ she asks her.

Sherri doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to answer. There’s guilt in her eyes, and she can see the answer there. ‘The boyfriend you spoke to me about… that was him. Wasn’t it?’

Sherri nods briefly and she feels herself shut down. She doesn’t know what to do or say or how she can move or--he was sleeping with her. He started a relationship with her. Obviously Ms. West meant something to him, if he began a relationship with her immediately after they broke up… he lied to her. If he had slept with anyone else… if it had been anyone else, not her… he must have kept her card and her phone number and called her as soon as he got back from Bermuda, or before, and… and he had never wanted her. He had always wanted someone else. Sherri, perhaps, but not her… 

‘Ms. West,’ she says, then stops. She is not capable of continuing, even if she knew what to say.

They are both silent for a long time. ‘I am sorry,’ Sherri says at last. ‘I know you loved him. That you wanted to marry him, but he didn’t--I mean--I didn’t mean--’

‘Did he tell you that, too?’ she asks, interrupting her. She can’t listen to anything else. He’d told Sherri that about her. That she loved him. That she wanted to marry him but he didn’t want to marry her. What else did he say? That he never loved her?

Sherri nods slowly in response to her question.

She closes her eyes. She’s going to cry. She’s going to sob. She can’t do this in front of her. She cannot. He spoke to her about them. It’s such a violation… 

‘I’d like a few minutes alone. Please tell Olivia and Elliott I’ll be out in a minute.’

She doesn’t open her eyes, but Sherri says, ‘Okay.’

She barely manages to hold on long enough for Sherri to leave. As she hears the bathroom door close, she starts to cry. How could she have been so wrong about him? How could she have trusted someone who would treat her like this?

She gets a hold on her emotions quickly--she has no other option--and manages to give her report to Olivia, Elliott, and Sherri without faltering. She leaves, then, and heads to her office to write up her written report. She wants to get that out of the way so that she never has to think about that man again. She knows that’s futile, however--she will have nightmares about him for as long as she lives, just as another man haunts her nightmares--latex gloves snapping, the scent of her old perfume filling her nose, gagging her… 

She closes her eyes. Why did she think working for the police was a good idea? She could have just focused on private practice, or taught, and she would still be helping people. This is too much. This turns her stomach.

When she was with Mike… he understood, when she needed to talk about the horrors she’d seen and heard. He’d listened. He knew. How could she share everything--all this--with someone who doesn’t know what it’s like? How can she sit across a table from Archie tonight at Sant Ambroeus and pretend her day was fine, pretend that she didn’t spend three hours listening to a rapist and child molester detail his crimes, let alone pretend that her heart wasn’t further smashed to smithereens by Sherri West. Which is worse? She doesn’t know. She cannot bear to contemplate either of them.

She’s made some terrible choices in her life, apparently. She’s only just starting to realize what poor decisions they were. How could she have been so foolish?

She walks home. She needs to rid herself of some of her nervous energy, though it doesn’t work. When she gets home, the August heat has taken its toll and she is sweaty and exhausted. She drops her clothes in the bag for the dry cleaners and takes a nice cool shower. She is meeting Archie for dinner. She wants to be composed and collected and not frazzled, as she is now. She does not want to share how shattered she is.

She meditates for a while, then takes her time getting dressed. By the time she is ready for dinner she feels calmer, which is a blessing. She walks to the restaurant. It’s only a few blocks away. She’s a few minutes early, and gives Archie’s name to the maitre d’. She’s shown to their table, one of the ones tucked into the front window, and is given a menu. She orders a glass of Sancerre while she waits for him.

Fifteen minutes later, he still hasn’t arrived. She’s halfway finished with her glass of wine, and when the waiter comes to see if she needs anything, she asks him to check if there are any messages for her. He comes back promptly--nothing. She asks if she can use the phone, and when she calls his house there’s no answer. She leaves a brief message--‘I’m at the restaurant, I’ll be here for a little bit longer and then I’ll head home’--and her heart sinks as she returns to her seat. The restaurant is filling up and she is mortified, sitting here alone, having clearly been stood up. She didn’t think he’d be like this. She was obviously wrong.

She pays for her glass of wine and leaves forty minutes after they were meant to meet. Maybe he left her a message at home. She can’t help the slump of her shoulders as she makes her way back to her apartment and lets herself up. There are no new messages on her machine. She changes out of her dress and makes herself an omelette for dinner, then brings a glass of wine and a book with her to bed. She can’t concentrate, so she gives up, finishes the wine, and gets ready for bed.

How did she get here? She doesn’t deserve this. She’s spent her life trying to help people. Well, if she’s learned anything in the past five years it’s that the world isn’t fair and people often don’t get what they deserve. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. It will be all right. She wasn’t in love with Archie. And Mike… an involuntary sob racks her body. She rolls over and buries her face in the pillow. He didn’t care about her at all, did he? If he was telling his new girlfriend all about their private, personal relationship. He was the one who didn’t want to share it. She would have been proud to be known publicly as his girlfriend. He was the one who didn’t want that.

She thought that she knew him. She thought that she knew him better than anyone else in the world. How could she have been so wrong? That’s what scares her. She was so entirely wrong… she had loved him totally and completely and she had wanted to be his wife and have his children and she didn’t know him at all, because the person that she knew--that she thought she knew--would never have done that to her. He left her stranded in the middle of nowhere and he could not tell her that he loved her. Three words. She just wanted three words. I love you. How was that so impossible for him to say?

Her pillow is damp. She’s been crying. She wipes her tears away, angrily, with the back of her wrist and moves over to what was his side of the bed to a dry pillow. She tries to even her breathing, to calm herself, but it’s useless. She sobs and sobs for a long, long time, about everything--the wedding and their breakup and Sherri West and Archie standing her up and the useless, hopeless longing she still feels for Mike. She cries because she imagined a future for them, she felt sure that they’d have that future, and now… now, that future is not possible, now she is alone.

It feels strange to be alone. She’s grown used to having Archie with her. She’d been used to having Mike with her, too. And now, lying in bed in her bedroom, she’s struck again by how much space she has. It’s too much space for one person. She’d thought she’d have a family by now to fill this space; she thought that she’d have her husband lying next to her, a baby monitor on the nightstand. She sighs. Maybe she should move anyway, find a one-bedroom. This much empty space is so depressing. She feels so alone.

She is alone. Isn’t that the point? She is alone. She was alone when she was with Mike and she had no idea. Even if Archie was here right now, she would still be alone.

She’s been thinking about Mike a lot--too much. Last night she dreamed about the beginning. She dreamed about him leaning against her door, asking her, ‘If I kiss you, are you gonna regret it?’

She should have said yes. She should have slammed the door in his face and stopped treating him and quit working at the 2-7. She should have run as fast as she could. She should not have stepped into his arms.

That’s why she gave up so much for him, she knows. She’s always known it, deep down--she’s just allowing herself to realize it now. That’s why she never pushed for the things she wanted. That’s why she let him dictate the terms of their relationship; that’s why she never pushed issues he was uncomfortable with; that’s why anything she said--when she suggested they move in together, when she would bring up marriage or children--was carefully considered, every option weighed. That was why, whenever he’d shut that line of inquiry down, she’d withdraw immediately.

He was her patient when their relationship began. She’d wanted him desperately. She’d broken the rules; she’d slept with him. She should not have done that. And so, because she didn’t want to become Diane Meade, she didn’t want to fear that she was manipulating him, she let him be in charge. She had had to give him all the choices, all the power, even if she didn’t realize what she was doing. It wasn’t a partnership. It should have been. It could never have been. And that had never changed.

It’s almost a relief to acknowledge this now. This is why she held back; this is why she didn’t push for the things she wanted and needed. If she had told him what she needed from him over time, instead of springing it all on him, would he have obliged her? She’s unsure, but she knows now that if he’d given in, if it hadn’t been clear that he wanted the things she wanted on his own, that she would always be unsure as to whether or not he made those decisions independently.

If he had proposed on his own… if he had gone to her parents and asked for their blessing, if he had picked out a ring, if he had planned a proposal, she could have believed that he wanted to marry her. If he’d said to her, ‘I want children with you. Let’s start trying to have a baby,’ she could have believed that, too. But he did neither of those things. And when it came to the end of it, when he couldn’t even tell her that he loved her, she knew. She knew that it was her fault. That he had never wanted what they’d had, but he didn’t know how to get out of it. Well, he found a way, didn’t he?

It was her fault--all of it. She had been in a position of power over him. She should never have kissed him, never have slept with him, never have even had a personal relationship with him. She has only herself to blame for the hurt she’s feeling now. 

She had loved him. She still loves him. It wasn’t a power trip for her, it wasn’t a control thing, it wasn’t even just desire. It was love. She knows that her feelings, at least, were pure. The question is not what she felt for him, but what he felt for her.

She needs to stop thinking about this, about him, about Archie, about men. Considering how little of the first twenty-one years of her life was spent around men, it’s astonishing how two have been dominating her thoughts recently, and how one had consumed her life for the past four years. She’s lucky to have some amazing female friends. She hasn’t seen many of them for a long time. She’ll make an effort to see them more.

Starting with Diana, she thinks. She hasn’t seen her friend for so long now that she is in private practice. She leans over and picks up the phone.


	44. Something other than regret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem in this chapter is Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Sonnet XXX."

‘Logan!’ Stolper calls out. ‘Get in here.’

He sets down his cup of coffee and gets to his feet reluctantly. He fucking hates Stolper. The last thing he wants to do today is pander to this asshole. But when he steps into Stolper’s office he sees Archie Newbold sitting there in the chair in front of Stolper’s desk. He’s startled, and angry, but at least the bastard looks like shit. His nose is in a splint and he has two black eyes.

 _Fucking hell_ , he thinks angrily. _This bastard tracked me down?_

‘Mr. Newbold said that he was attacked yesterday and you were a witness,’ Stolper says. ‘He wanted to speak with you about the incident. Take the conference room.’

He nods tightly and Archie stands, following him out of the room. At least the bastard waits to speak until the door is closed behind them.

‘I’d like an apology,’ he says. ‘If I get one, I won’t press charges.’

‘And if I refuse?’ he asks, looking at this asshole, smug and entitled and privileged.

‘I don’t think Liz would like to know what happened.’

He’s surprised he’s playing that card, but he shouldn’t be. And that’s what he doesn’t want to have happen. He doesn’t want her to know that he still cares about her. Or… he does want that, but he doesn’t want her to think that he did this because of her, because he’s angry she’s with someone else… hell, he doesn’t know what he wants, but he doesn’t want her to know. She abhorred violence.

‘She wouldn’t believe you,’ he says.

‘She would,’ he replies. ‘Didn’t you just punch a councilman? You broke my nose, Detective Logan. I stood her up last night because I was unconscious at the hospital, and now she isn’t returning my calls. I’m sure she’d like an explanation.’

‘What does she mean to you?’ he snaps.

Archie is unruffled. ‘I care for her deeply. And she’s gone through quite a lot lately--as I’m sure you’re aware.’

He closes his eyes. He’s aware. He doesn’t want to be. Already his relationship with her seems like it happened to someone else. Already he feels like a different person. He’d loved her. He’d wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and even now, knowing that someone else has the privilege of being with her, even if the past four years feel like a dream… it sickens him.

‘How did you know who I was?’ he asks suddenly.

‘There are pictures of you at the beach house,’ he says simply, and all of the sudden his anger vanishes. She still has pictures of him? So she does still care about him. She does still want him.

‘Look, I don’t know what your relationship is, but Lizzie--she and I--’ he doesn’t know what to say. ‘We’re just goin’ through a rough patch right now. So I appreciate you bein’ her date to the wedding, but--’

He’s looking at him, confused--or at least he thinks he is. It’s hard to tell with his broken nose and black eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

‘She and I… our relationship…’ he doesn’t know what to say. ‘She wants to marry me,’ he says at last.

‘And I’m under the impression that you did not want to marry her,’ Archie replies. ‘Or was I incorrect?’

‘What if I’ve changed my mind?’ he asks impetuously. _Shit_ , he thinks, as Archie’s eyes widen.

‘I don’t know her as well as I’d like,’ Archie says slowly. ‘But I do know that your violent actions are ones she would not approve of. I don’t want her to be hurt.’

‘Well, that’s not really your responsibility, is it?’ he says, feeling himself get angry again. He takes a deep breath. ‘I’d never hurt her.’

‘You’d never hurt her physically, you mean,’ Archie corrects. ‘Because you’ve broken her heart.’

He grits his teeth but he can’t deny it.

‘I hope you don’t take this the wrong way,’ Archie continues. ‘But I think that speaking with someone might help you.’

Is there a right way to take that? he thinks angrily. ‘A shrink, you mean? The last time I saw a shrink I fucked her, did you know that? Liz. She was my doctor when we got together. Did she tell you that?’

Archie finally shows some emotion. He’s uncomfortable, disconcerted, upset. ‘No,’ he says at last. ‘She didn’t.’

He feels a small surge of triumph. ‘She’s not perfect. She’s made a lot of mistakes. That’s a big one. Did you know she pushed to have a shrink who was sleeping with her patient charged with murder? She knew it was wrong. By her reasoning, she could be charged with assault if you wanna push to charge me with assault.’

Archie is obviously trying to get back in control of the conversation. ‘I didn’t come here to speak about Elizabeth.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘I can’t remember now,’ Archie says. He sighs and looks at him for a long time. ‘I was curious, I suppose. You obviously felt something negative about me because of my role in her life. I suppose I thought that if you felt that strongly about me, you still cared about her. I thought that perhaps your breakup was a mistake, and if that was the case, I should step aside, if that is what she wants. She deserves happiness in her life; she deserves someone to love her and cherish her. I care about her. If she would be happier with you… I would not want to get in the way of that.’

This is his chance, he realizes. This is it, the moment, the turning point. She’d take him back--he knows that. She loves him. Love doesn’t just disappear overnight; he knows that too. She would take him back and she would want promises from him--she would want an engagement ring, an apology, children--not in that order. She would want him to see a therapist. She would want him to never again stray from her side. She would want him to move in with her officially, she would want them to find and build their own home together. She would want many things. She would deserve all of those things. He could give her all of those things. The ring is still in his closet. He could tell her the truth about when he bought it--before they split. Pat could confirm it. Her parents could confirm it. He’d asked for their blessing. If he went to her and apologized, yeah, he’d have to apologize to her parents as well. Her family. And she would stick by his side, she would support him, because she does love him…

There’s a poem she liked that he didn’t, because he didn’t like to think about it, the commitment implied in it. But he remembers it anyway. _I might be driven to sell your love for peace,/Or trade the memory of this night for food./It may well be. I do not think I would._ Would he give up everything else to keep his memories of her? He closes his eyes and a series of images from their life together appear before him, just like a film. The way she smiled at him in Ireland, when she took his hands in front of his family and promised to be his forever. That night, jumping over the dying bonfire with her in his arms, the way she laughed, the look in her eyes of admiration and love and desire and trust. Sitting with her on the porch swing at Southerly, her back pressed against his chest, her hair tickling his nose. Lying next to her on the beach, admiring the way she looked in her bathing suit. The way her eyes filled with tears when he said he didn’t want to marry her. She looked like she’d been kicked in the stomach.

‘Would she be happier with you?’ Archie asks him again. He opens his eyes.

He knows what he has to say.


	45. It Suddenly Seems

She’s hurt and angry and embarrassed when she wakes up in the morning. Archie stood her up. Why? She didn’t think he’d be like this, but if her relationship with Mike had taught her anything it’s that she’s a terrible judge of character. It shouldn’t surprise her that she was wrong about Archie, too.

He didn’t call her last night--she would have heard the phone, but she checks her answering machine anyway. Nothing. She takes a shower and there’s still nothing. She makes coffee and brings it to her room to get dressed and there’s still nothing. She heads into her office early. She doesn’t have appointments until 11, but she has paperwork to do.

At nine thirty, Jessica knocks on her door. ‘Liz, Archie Newbold is on the phone for you.’

Too late, she thinks. ‘Please tell him I am unavailable.’

Jessica nods. She’s curious, but she’s not one to pry, for which she is profoundly, deeply grateful. Jessica knocks again a half hour later.

‘Archie Newbold again, Liz,’ she says. ‘He asked me to tell you that he is sorry and would like a chance to explain.’

‘I’m unavailable to him today,’ she says. ‘Please let him know. Thank you.’

‘All right,’ she says. ‘Can I get you anything?’

‘No, thank you,’ she says. ‘I appreciate it.’

‘Okay. Let me know.’

‘Thank you,’ she says again, and Jessica nods and leaves.

It’s a struggle to concentrate on her patients today. She’s exhausted from a restless night, though at least she wasn’t plagued by nightmares. When she leaves her office to get a sandwich from the deli around the corner, Jessica tells her that Archie’s called twice more.

Maybe she should take his call, she thinks, standing in line and waiting for her sandwich. Maybe something had happened. But he could have called at the time, or last night. He didn’t need to wait until this morning. And he could tell her now, or at least tell Jessica, what had happened. She’ll think about it tonight and decide what to do.

When she has said goodbye to her last patient of the day, Jessica knocks on her door.

‘Mr. Newbold is here to see you, Liz,’ she says loudly, then lowers her voice so that only she can hear. ‘I really think you should talk to him.’

Well, he’s forced the issue--she may as well, though she is frustrated at being undermined, at him not giving her a chance to decide what she wants to do. Didn’t he promise that she would be in control? She sighs and nods.

When Archie appears in the hallway, she can’t restrain a gasp. He looks awful--he has two black eyes and his nose is obviously broken. This is obviously why he stood her up last night--and now she feels horribly guilty.

‘Archie, oh my God! Are you all right?’ she asks, stepping aside so that he can come into her office. He takes the seat she indicates and she sits down on the opposite end of the sofa.

‘First of all, Liz, I would like to apologize for standing you up last night. I assure you, I would not have done so, but I was at the hospital, unconscious. I haven’t mentioned it before, but I have a mild case of hemophilia, so…’

‘What happened?’ she asks, horrified at his injuries. He looks even worse closer up.

‘It was a wrong place, wrong time sort of thing,’ he says. ‘I was running around the reservoir around five yesterday and someone took offense, apparently. I’m so sorry.’

‘I’m the one who should apologize,’ she says, flushing at her rudeness. ‘I should have picked up the phone. I’m sorry.’

‘You had every right to ignore me,’ he assures her. ‘But I wanted to let you know that I didn’t mean to stand you up. I care about you, Liz.’

Now she feels even worse. She doesn’t know what to say.

‘I have to go out of town for a few days,’ Archie says. ‘Unexpectedly. My grandfather is ill and my mother and I are flying to Dublin tonight.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. She is. ‘Will he be all right?’

Archie sighs. ‘I’m not sure. I hope so. He’s had problems with his heart in the past and he’s in the hospital again. I hope he’s back on his feet soon, though. I will let you know when I’m home.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’ she offers.

He rests his hand on hers. ‘If don’t mind, I’d like to write to you.’

‘I’d like that,’ she says.

He smiles, then winces. ‘Ow.’

‘I’m so sorry this happened to you,’ she says, reaching out to touch his nose lightly. ‘My God, whoever did this must be a terrible person. Do you know who it was? Have you filed a police report?’

He takes a deep breath. ‘I know who it was. I didn’t file a report, though.’

She frowns. ‘Why not, if you knew their name? Who was it?’

‘It doesn’t matter right now. Unfortunately, I have to run home and pack, my dear, but I hope to be back soon. I’ll write to you.’

‘All right,’ she says. ‘I hope you feel better.’

‘Thank you.’ He leans forward and kisses her cheek. 

‘Have a safe flight,’ she says, and he stands.

‘Thank you,’ he says again. ‘I’ll write when I get there.’

‘I look forward to it,’ she says--and she does. She hasn’t received many love letters in her life, and she’s sure that any missive from him will be one.

‘And I look forward to your response,’ he says, and smiles and says goodbye before leaving.

She sits there for a long time, wondering, before she finally makes herself move. She’s meeting Diana for dinner tonight at the River Club and she wants to change beforehand. She’s looking forward to seeing her friend and she’s grateful Diana was willing to come to midtown to meet her as she now lives in the Village. She brought a change of clothes to her office this morning and she takes the time to change now, putting on a little black dress, low black slingbacks, and applying some makeup. She ties a silk scarf around her shoulders--her go-to way to dress up an outfit at any time of year, but especially the summer.

Dressing carefully--for her friend is always very elegant, especially now that she’s in private practice--takes her mind off things. She’s making a resolution--she’ll stop thinking about men for now. She doesn’t need a man, not even Mike, to make her happy. Happiness comes from within. She knows she’ll have to discuss what happened with Diana tonight--she gave her a brief overview on the phone last night--but otherwise, she thinks, she’s done discussing this. Any of it. She’s tired of it and she’s still grieving but she has to move on.

Honestly, she’s tired of grieving too. Yes, she did something wrong, but that doesn’t forgive his behavior. He treated her badly. Just because he was allowed to make all the decisions in their relationship doesn’t mean he should have cheated on her. He was the one who wanted to be exclusive. Well, she did too, but he brought it up, he made promises to her.

But she loved him. It was ridiculous when you thought about it, that she’d fall in love with him. They were so different. But she loved him and that’s all there was to it.

She sighs. She’ll stop dwelling on this eventually, she hopes. In the meantime, she’ll work through this any way she can.

She arrives at the River Club first and tells the desk that she’s expecting a friend. She goes into the library to wait for Diana and orders a glass of wine when a waiter comes to take her order. She hasn’t been here for some time--the last time, she thinks, was at Peter’s birthday dinner two months ago. She likes this club, though. It’s a very family-oriented club, and wonderful for children…

Thankfully Diana arrives and she’s able to pull her mind off the well-worn track it was on to focus on her friend.

‘It’s been too long,’ her friend says, embracing her. ‘How are you?’

It’s a simple question, an expected question, and yet she doesn’t know how to respond. She’s saved again by the arrival of the waiter, who hands her her glass of wine and takes Diana’s order.

She and Diana take their seats on either side of a small sofa. She studies her friend. She looks good, she thinks--she’s wearing a silk blouse and a tailored skirt. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a chignon. As she meets Diana’s eyes, however, she sees a hardness there that hadn’t been there before, and a bitterness too. It’s not directed at her, she knows, but it makes her sad for her friend.

When she and McCoy broke up, Diana was devastated. It didn’t hit her, she thinks, until some time later, when she left the DA’s office. Diana had felt sure, she told her later, that Jack would change his mind, that he was under some internal pressure from Adam, but when she left the DA’s office and he didn’t return her calls, she realized that it hadn’t been anything but his lack of desire to continue their relationship.

She herself had known McCoy for a long time, though not as long as Diana. When they’d broken up, she’d felt torn between her loyalty to her friend and his callous behavior and their continued work together. It was difficult to tread carefully in being professional and not letting her personal feelings ruin their working relationship. She and Jack had always had a contentious relationship in any case, but after Diana… 

‘So, are you all right?’ Diana asks.

‘Fine,’ she lies. ‘Just… adjusting. That’s been a challenge.’

‘I remember,’ Diana says, and this time her voice is bitter. ‘It’s hell, getting used to being on your own again. Adjusting expectations of the future, of your life. Dealing with well-meaning, sympathetic friends, people who want to matchmake, but worse--the people who tell you that they’re glad that you finally broke up, that your ex didn’t deserve you. There were a lot of people who told me that. It just… it made the three years we were together feel like they were wasted.’

‘I’ve been dealing with a lot of that too,’ she admits quietly, looking down into her glass of Sancerre. Diana’s glass of wine is brought to her and the waiter disappears silently. ‘The questions seem endless.’

‘Yes, you’re unlucky--people actually knew you were together,’ Diana says. ‘Barely anyone knew about me and McCoy.’ She sighs. ‘I’m sorry, Liz. Do you want to talk about it?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘I feel as though I’ve spent the entire time we’ve been broken up speaking about it. It’s time to move on.’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ Diana says, lifting her glass.

She smiles and they touch glasses and drink.


	46. Foggy

At dinner tonight with Sherri, she told him that they needed to talk.

‘Donnelly called me into her office today,’ she said. ‘I’m going to be in Albany for the next month or so, second charing this case in front of the Supreme Court. It’s a huge honor--I’ve only second chaired for her a couple times, when Cabot was out, so… I’m really thrilled. But I’ll be gone for a month or more. And--I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you. But I think we should just be friends for now. I’ll be gone for a while and I’m not up to a long-distance thing right now.’

Is it bad to admit--only to himself--that he was relieved? ‘I understand. Work is pickin’ up too, and I’m not gonna have a lot of down time…’

She smiled at him, and they ended things in bed, and… well, it was probably for the best, and things ending between them at least wrapped up a lot more neatly than they did with Liz… 

‘Call me if you ever get lonely,’ he said as he left.

‘You too,’ she’d replied, and he kissed her goodbye, and walked home, where he is now.

He’ll admit that he’s still off-kilter from his conversation with Archie earlier today. He’s still stunned by what he told him--that Liz still had pictures of him on display, that he recognized him, that he’d step back. That stunned him, then angered him. Where did he get off, assuming that Liz would prefer to be with that prick more than him? He was angry, too, that Archie was clearly more of a “gentleman” than he was. Stupid fuck. He bit his tongue and ground out an apology because he didn’t want to get arrested for assault, then Sherri broke things off, and now he’s here at home.

If he’ll admit it, he’s surprised by her too, even if he is relieved. But it makes sense. He doesn’t want to be stuck in something long-distance, even if Albany’s only a couple hours away and she’ll only be gone for a month. And--she’s not Lizzie.

He’s furious still that that prick had the nerve to suggest he go see a shrink and that he felt that he was entitled into arbitrating Lizzie’s happiness. She’s perfectly capable of doing that herself, and besides--he was there first. He’s the person she loves, not _Archie_. He can go to hell.

Things with Sherri are over. It makes what he’s gonna do next easier. He does need to change things, and for the better, because he knows that he’s trapped in a morass of shit and--well, he’s already lost the job he was meant to do, and the woman he was supposed to be with, so it’s time for him to fix things. He’s gotta fix things. And he knows who he’s gotta start with.

‘I’ve gotta say, Mike, I was surprised to get your call,’ Lennie says, when the waitress has poured them both a cup of coffee. ‘I’d figured you were just gonna keep ignoring me.’

He rubs a hand over his eyes. ‘Yeah, I know. I’m sorry,’ he says, which is hard to say--but he is. He needs to practice saying it.

‘So what happened? Why’d you do it?’ Lennie is not judging him, but he is curious.

He sighs and looks down at the table. ‘What Sherri said in the interrogation room, Sherri West… about us bein’ together a few years ago… Liz heard it, you know, and… well, she figured out that… I’d cheated on her.’

‘Oh,’ Lennie says, after a beat.

‘Yeah,’ he says miserably. ‘So we split. And… yeah.’

‘She didn’t call you after… it happened?’ Lennie asks.

‘She did,’ he admits. ‘And--we couldn’t make it work.’

‘I thought you really loved her,’ Lennie says.

He takes a swig of his coffee. He doesn’t know what to say.

‘You do love her, don’t you?’ his ex-partner presses.

‘I fucked it up,’ he says. ‘And it’s not gonna work when I’m on Staten Island. We’d never see each other.’

‘Well, the Lieu is working on getting you back,’ Lennie tells him. ‘Hopefully soon.’

He’s touched by Lennie’s simple declaration and by Anita’s faith in him. He clears his throat. ‘Please tell her thanks from me.’

‘I will,’ he says, and then his pager beeps. His partner digs it out, peers at it, then looks up at him. ‘Gotta go. But don’t be a stranger, Mikey, okay?’

‘Okay,’ he says. They exchange an awkward smile before Lennie drops a bill on the table to cover his coffee and heads out. He watches him go with regret. He should be out there, watching his back. Instead, he fucked everything up.

He has a lot of things to do. Too many. And he has the early shift tomorrow, which means he’s gotta get up when it’s still dark, and take the ferry down… Christ. He hates this so much. He’d quit and do something else if he could but what would he do? Anything would be a step down unless he went back to school and he can’t afford to do that, nor does he have the support he’d need to keep at it. He needs her, he knows that. He’s always needed her.

Right now, for the first time in a long time, he feels calm and everything seems clear. He needs her. He’s needed her always, from that first appointment to get his head shrunk till right now. But Christ, he was a real bastard to her, wasn’t he? She loved him and she wanted to marry him and she supported him and wanted him and let him have all the choices in their relationship, make all the decisions… and what did he do? He left her.

She did let him have all the choices, didn’t she? All the ones that mattered. She never, ever forced him to have a conversation about their future. She didn’t pressure him to do things he didn’t want to do--dinner with her friends he didn’t like, or doing things she knew he would want to pay for but couldn’t afford… and she’d loved his family… and she’d wanted to make him happy. She was kind and loving and nurturing and she just wanted to be with him. And at the end… when she told him to go… she was asking for _anything_. She was asking for the smallest possible thing he could give her--three words. I love you. That was it. And even though he had the engagement ring he bought her in his suitcase, and even though he did love her, he couldn’t say it. What else was she supposed to do?

What he said to Archie… that they were going through a rough patch… yeah, they are going through one, that’s true, but it was a lie too because they’re not together any more. Because he forced her to dump him. He’d avoided answering Archie’s question--would he make her happier--because he didn’t know the answer. He’d wanted to say yes. He wanted to tell Archie that he’d love and cherish her forever, that he’d never hurt her again. He couldn’t tell him that. But he couldn’t give him his blessing either.

He doesn’t know what to do right now. Actually, that’s not true. Right now he does know exactly what to do--go to her, apologize, tell her that he wants to make things work and that he wants to marry her, ask her to recommend a shrink for him to see. He should start to work through his issues--and he knows he has a lot. She always helped him with that, even after she stopped treating him. But he can’t promise that he’s not going to hurt her again. He’s scared that he will. And then… it could be at a point when it would be unforgivable. If they were married. If they had children. He’d never be able to forgive himself. He doesn’t know that he’ll be able to forgive himself for what he’s already done. At least, he doesn’t know how he will if he stays clear of the fog of rage and illusion he’s been lost in.

He’s gotta apologize to her. He should write her a letter. He should just tell her that he’s sorry for what he did--because he is--and tell her that he loves her, and tell her that he hopes she’s happy with Archie. She deserves to be happy. She’s a good person. He just… he just doesn’t want her to be happy without him. And that’s selfish, but… it’s how he feels.


	47. Bring this chapter to a close

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Eilis" is Irish for Elizabeth.
> 
> Sheila Atkins is a canonical character in _Law & Order_, appearing in the episode "Divorce."

1 Hume Street  
Dublin 2  
Eire

Dr. Elizabeth Olivet  
840 Park Avenue, 8F  
New York, New York 10075  
United States of America

Saturday, August 26

Dear Liz,

This is a difficult letter for me to write, and I’m unsure if writing it is the correct thing to do in this circumstance. You asked if I knew who assaulted me and I told you that I did, but I made my excuses and left before I told you who it was. The man who punched me was Mike Logan. I recognized him from both the recent newspaper articles and the pictures you had of him at your godparents’ beach house.

I went to speak with him the day after the incident, before I came to speak to you. I wanted to know--he obviously felt angry with me because of my association with you. He told me that your relationship with him began when he was your patient.

I don’t want to judge you, Liz. I’m certainly not in a position to do so. I wasn’t a party to this decision, and I don’t think less of you for making it--you obviously loved him. But I thought that you should know what was said.

I told him that if you wanted me to, and if he could make you happy, I would step aside. I care for you deeply, even though we’ve only spent such a short time together. I want you to be happy. I believe you deserve that.

I am unsure when I will be home. I’d like it, still, if you’d write to me. However, if you don’t feel comfortable doing so, or wish to end our association, I will understand.

Please know that whatever happens, I care for you deeply and wish for you every happiness.

Yours,

Archie

Liz Olivet  
840 Park Avenue, 8F  
New York, NY 10075

Postmarked August 30th, 1995

Lizzie,

This is hard for me to write. I don’t really know how to say what I know I need to say, what you need me to say.

I behaved badly. I treated you badly. You’ve never done anything but treat me well and love me and… and I didn’t treat you fairly in return. I should never have said the things I said. And when you asked me if I loved you… I should have responded. You deserved that.

I know that this isn’t enough. I don’t know how to say it. You’ve always been better at words than me.

You’re an amazing woman. I hope that you find someone to make you happy.

Mike.

_Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Wyndham Armstrong_   
_request the pleasure of your company_   
_at a birthday party in honor of their daughter_   
_Miss Helen Pratt Armstrong_   
_Saturday, the sixteenth of September_   
_at seven o’clock_   
_at Inis Fada_

_White tie_

_Rsvp_   
_Inis Fada_   
_Lattingtown_

Darling--I’m sending Archie a separate invitation even though I anticipate that you two will attend together--!!! I’m so glad that my little matchmaking seems to have borne fruit. He really is a catch and a very appropriate partner for you I look forward to hearing all about your budding relationship at Helen’s birthday party! You’re welcome to spend the night with us at Inis Fada but somehow I think you might prefer staying at Corriegarth, am I correct? At least you’d be right next door!

Oh, a little birdie in the village told me that someone special had been seen having his great-grandmother’s engagement ring cleaned… something you want to tell me? Or perhaps it’s a bit too soon for that, darling, but you know--he’s a catch, as I’ve said before, and he’s charming, a good dancer, and has that beautiful apartment right by the Met… you could do much worse. And you’d have a title when he inherits from his grandfather! Lady Elizabeth Bracklyn has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Or is that not the proper form? Is it Elizabeth Newbold, Lady Bracklyn? Will he keep Newbold as a surname? Would you take his?

Well, darling, things are running away with me, but please do come out early for Helen’s quiet birthday dinner the night before the party. Archie is invited to that too, of course, and we can’t wait to see you _both_!!! _together_!!!

Aunt Janet xoxoxo

Caroline Logan  
An Baile Bán, Gaillimh  
Éire

Wednesday, 30 August 1995

Dear Mícheál,

We haven’t heard from you in some time, so I volunteered to write to see how you and Eilis are. How are you? We miss you both and hope that you will be able to come see us soon.

Your uncle asked me to remind you that when you have your first child, he’d like to bless the baby. Is there any news on that front? You have been in our prayers, especially mine. I think that you both will be wonderful parents.

Could you please ask your wife if she would like me to purchase some linens for her? In her last letter she expressed an interest. I will be traveling to Galway next month and would be able to send her some if she would still like them. Please write soonest and let me know.

My dear nephew, we all miss you both very much. We would love if you could come see us soon. Perhaps for Christmas? It would be grand to have you both here with us.

Please give my love to your sister, and to Patrick and Thomas and Eileen. And please try to persuade them to join you in your next visit! Please do send pictures, too--we look forward to seeing how the little ones have grown.

With all of our love, and especially mine, to you and to Eilis,  
Your Aunt Caroline

**REGISTERED MAIL**

Sheila Atkins  
44 West 61st Street  
New York, NY 10023

Michael Logan  
200 East 89th Street  
New York, NY 10128

August 31st, 1995

Dear Detective Logan,

Detective Marino’s will has cleared probate and I am writing to inform you of the bequest he made to you. Detective Marino left the enclosed envelope for you, as well as a pair of cufflinks he received upon his graduation from the Police Academy, also enclosed.

Please contact my office with any questions.

Best wishes,  
Sheila Atkins

Mike,

I want to say that I’m sorry for what I did to you and to everyone else. I can’t believe I did it. I can’t believe what happened. I just--I didn’t know how to stop it. Or what else to do. I’m sorry. I hope you can believe me.

I’m glad you have Liz. I’m so glad of that, Mike--it makes me feel a little less guilty, knowing that you found someone, that what I did didn’t ruin things for you. She’s a good woman. She loves you. And do you want to know the best thing? She already knows all this stuff that happened and she still loves you and wants to be with you. That’s a blessing and I hope you never forget it. I wish I’d told Judy. I wish she’d known. Then I could’ve had some help…

But the important thing is, Mike, that you’ve got someone who loves you. You’ve got someone who cares about you. Don’t let her go. Don’t ever let her go.

Billy


	48. Make the most of this

Archie has been gone for over a week now and she just doesn’t know how to write to him. He’s written her three letters, including the first, explosive one, and every time she tries to respond she finds herself simply unable to do so. What on earth could she say? He knows that she slept with Mike when he was her patient. Mike was the one who punched him. He went to speak with Mike.

She has so many questions but no way to ask them.

The worst part is that, when she read the letter for the first time, she had hope. Hope that Mike still loved her. How could she still feel like that? He hurt her so badly and she wronged him and he wronged her too and doesn’t she have any goddamned self respect? But she wants to cry. She did cry, when she read Archie’s letter. And then Mike’s…

He didn’t apologize. He didn’t say he loved her. So why is she still chasing after him after all this time, even if it’s only mentally? She loved him and she’s tired of it, tired of that, of this endless, useless longing. She is so tired of it. Why can’t she fall in love with Archie instead? He’s a wonderful man, a gentleman as Mike never was, and he obviously cares for her. They could have children and there wouldn’t be the struggle over their child’s upbringing the way there would be with Mike.

She dreamed about him again last night. She dreamed that they were back in the small cottage they rented in Maine last summer, dreamed that she opened her eyes and stared up at the pine wood ceiling. The sheets were flannel, even though it was summer, and she was alone in bed. When she pushed herself up to sit, she saw him come into the bedroom, carrying a tray of breakfast.

‘Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,’ he said, grinning at her. She smiled back and he came over and set the tray down on the nightstand, then sat on the bed next to her. He reached out and rested his hand on her abdomen.

‘I love you so much, honey,’ he said. ‘I’m so lucky.’

‘I love you,’ she told him, and he got that look in his eyes that he almost always did when she said those words--astonishment and gratitude and adoration--and he bent to kiss her. The kiss grew heated and he broke apart to say, ‘Let’s let breakfast get cold, huh?’ And she nodded and pulled him down to her and this time, at least, she was able to relive the entire memory and was not woken up until… after. But it made her cry anyway, when she woke up and realized that she was at home and not in Maine with him.

She’s so tired of this, of dreaming of him, of missing him and wanting someone who did what he did. Why can’t she fall out of love with him and love someone else? Why can’t this end and why can’t she just move on with her life, with someone else, or even just by herself?

She doesn’t know that she can pursue a relationship with Archie when she still feels like this about someone else. At least not now. It’s not fair to him. And what Mike had told him… what did Mike say exactly about their relationship? She can’t believe that he said anything. And what Archie wrote, that he would step aside if Mike would make her happier, if that’s what she wanted… that he told Mike that… what did Mike say? Was Mike’s letter his way of reaching out?

She wants to know, but how can she ever learn? She could never ask. He’ll never tell her. And besides, it doesn’t matter. He’s in a relationship with someone else. He cares about someone else. He wants someone else. And she… she wants the person she thought she had.

For the first time in her life work feels like a chore and not an essential part of her. She’s tired--she doesn’t sleep well--and it takes all her energy to keep her mind on her patients and their problems and how she can help them. God, she is so tired, she thinks. She is so, so tired.

She forces herself to update her notes and paperwork before allowing herself to go home. She’ll make something simple for dinner tonight; she doesn’t want to fuss. She doesn’t care enough to fuss right now. This has thrown her for a loop and all of her energy is focused on building up walls to keep herself from thinking about it. She doesn’t want to think about it. She can’t think about it. Right now there is nothing in the world she wants more than peace.

She takes the subway home, which is a mistake. It’s hot outside but it was hotter underground, and being shoved into commuters was extremely unpleasant. She’ll take a nice bath when she gets home, she tells herself as she exits at 77th Street.

And then he is there. He is there, on the corner outside her building, waiting for her. His hands are stuffed in his pockets and he’s scanning the sidewalks, looking for her. She’s stopped, she realizes, and then he sees her.

Isn’t this what you wanted? she asks herself. You wanted him to come and find you and tell you that he couldn’t live without you, you wanted him to get down on one knee and propose and--

He walks over to her. She still can’t move. He stops in front of her.

‘Hi, Lizzie,’ he says, and she closes her eyes. ‘Can we talk? Please?’

‘I don’t know what you want to say,’ she tells him. ‘Aren’t you dating someone else?’

She opens her eyes in time to see a flash of something cross his face. ‘We split up. Lizzie, I really need to talk to you.’

‘Well, I am seeing someone else,’ she tells him. ‘As you know. Because you’ve met.’

He sighs and rubs his hand over his eyes. ‘I just need to talk to you. We can go to a restaurant, or somethin’. Please, Lizzie.’

She doesn’t know what to say. She hates that. He’s unsettling her and yet all she wants to do is nod and embrace him and step back into the life that they had. She nods, tightly, once.

Some of the tension in his shoulders eases. ‘Great,’ he says. ‘Melon’s?’

 _No!_ she wants to scream. She knows what he’s doing. He’s trying to make her remember better times, but she doesn’t want to, she just wants to move on--but she nods again, and he relaxes further, and off they go.

Melon’s is crowded when they arrive, but they are regulars and they’re bumped to the top of the list. They wait awkwardly in the crowded vestibule and she avoids his eyes and tries to stay as far away from him as possible. It’s impossible--there’s barely any room--and she keeps bumping into him as they move to allow more people to enter the restaurant.

Finally, finally, finally, their names are called. It gives her a start to hear them said together. She precedes him, walking quickly, but he is fast too, reaching out to place his hand on her lower back to guide her through the crowd. She flinches involuntarily, not only from the surprise of this contact but also the way it makes her feel. He had known her so well, her body as well as her heart, and his thumb caresses a small circle at the base of her spine. Thank God thank God thank God they reach their table. She yanks out her chair before he has the chance to and sits down, ordering a gin and tonic from the waiter before he has a chance to say anything. He orders a beer, but then the waiter is gone and they are alone.

He says, ‘Billy Marino’s will finally cleared probate. He wrote me a letter.’

Her heart clenches tight. He’d gone through so much when Billy died. He’d been Mike’s friend, a close friend, and everything else that surrounded his suicide… everything that came out… he had been devastated. He had been heartbroken. Is this when everything started going off track for them? No, she tells herself. It was earlier. Much earlier.

Their drinks arrive and Mike gives the waitress their order--two bacon cheeseburgers, both rare, and cottage fries extra crispy with blue cheese dressing. She doesn’t protest that he’s ordering for her--she wants to know what Billy’s letter said.

He says, ‘I want you to read it.’ She nods and he draws the letter out from the inside pocket of his suit, handing it to her. She reads it--it’s short, and heartbreaking, and she wants to cry. She’d known Billy too, after all, professionally and personally, and she’d gone with Mike to his funeral--and what Billy wrote about her--

‘He’s right, Lizzie,’ he says, interrupting her thoughts. ‘I should never have let you go. So--whatever you want from me, you have it. Okay? Marriage, kids, a place together, anything--I just--I need you. I don’t want to lose you. So tell me--what do you want?’

She doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know how to move, how she can look at him, how this is happening. It’s what she wanted. This is what she’s wanted for years. But--

‘What do you want?’ she asks him, forcing herself to look up at him. He’s looking at her intensely, as though he’s willing her to give him the answer he needs.

‘You,’ he says. ‘Just you. Lizzie, please, I need you--’

He’s interrupted by the arrival of their food. She takes a moment to gulp down her gin and tonic, needing the alcohol, the fortification of it, the forced relaxation that it will guarantee.

He says he wants her. He’ll give her whatever she wants because he wants and needs her. Does this mean he doesn’t want the things that she does? Yes, she knows that’s the case, he admitted as much in Bermuda. But he wants her more than he doesn’t want the other things, the commitment. If she says yes--if they get married, try to have children, then what? Ten years from now, can she imagine their life? Will it be a happy one or will it end in pain and tears and divorce? And if it does end in divorce, what about their children, if they have them?

‘In ten years,’ she says slowly, looking at him again. He’s still watching her. ‘Where do you see us?’

He busies himself with the cottage fries. ‘Well, you want to get married and have kids. I figured we could get married this fall. In ten years, we’ll probably have a couple kids. We could find a place in the Village or Gramercy or Kips Bay so there’d be enough room. Hopefully by that time I’d be back in Manhattan. And, I dunno, you’d be workin’ for the city still, or teachin’, and… the kids would be in school, and I’d take a couple weeks off each summer and we’d go to the beach. I wouldn’t be around much, but I know you’re gonna be a great mom. You’d make up for it.’

Listening to him talk… she feels sadness settle over her, a deep, exhausting sadness. Everything he’s said, what he thinks their future would be… she wants children, and to be married, and she wants a home with him, but everything else… he wouldn’t be around. That’s true, she’s always known that, even before this happened. But to hear him say it… it feels as though he’s saying he wouldn’t be around because he doesn’t want to be.

‘Lizzie?’ he asks her. She realizes that she’s been silent for too long. She looks up at him. He’s waiting for her to say something. ‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ she tells him. ‘I just--I don’t know.’

‘I want you to be happy,’ he says, his voice with a desperate edge in it. ‘I need you. Whatever it takes to make you happy--’

‘But I want you to be happy, too,’ she says quietly. ‘I want you to want what I want. And I don’t think you want this.’

He drops his gaze. ‘I do.’

‘I don’t think you do, Mike. If you did… you wouldn’t have cheated on me, or just left when we were in Bermuda, or… or started a relationship with Sherri West when you left.’

His head snaps up. ‘How did you know that?’

She hesitates for a moment. Should she tell him the truth? She tells him part of it. ‘Nicky saw you two at the movie theater.’

His shoulders slump. ‘Lizzie--I just ran into her, that’s all. When I came back.’

‘I don’t believe that, Mike,’ she whispers. Her drink is empty; she wants another one, but she can’t see the waiter. ‘I think it was more serious than that.’

‘It’s over now, anyway,’ he says, trying to rally. ‘And--’

‘And what? It didn’t mean anything?’ she says, her voice sharp. If he says that again she will scream.

‘I was going to apologize,’ he tells her, gently. ‘I’m sorry, Lizzie. I’m so sorry.’

She looks down at her plate and bites her lip, hard, trying not to cry. Where was this apology weeks ago? She needed him to apologize then; she needs it now, too, but she’s scared that it’s not enough.

‘I need some time to think,’ she tells him. ‘I’ll call you when I’m ready to talk, okay?’

‘Okay,’ he says.

She nods in response.

She does stay and eat with him, though they do not speak. They split the bill. She declines his offer to walk her home; she needs space. When she gets home at last she finally, finally puts her paperwork away, checks her messages and her mail, then takes her long-awaited bath.

She leans back in the tub and closes her eyes. She tries to picture their life if they do marry and have children.

In ten years, if they get married this fall… if she gets pregnant right away… if they have two children two years apart… if all of those things happen, they would have a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old. She imagines a boy and a girl.

She can so clearly see the moment when she finds out she’s pregnant. She’d wake up early and take a pregnancy test, just as she did during the week in the summer of ’92 when she thought she might be pregnant. She’d wait impatiently for the egg timer to ring and she’d look down at the test and there they would be, two pink lines. She can imagine so clearly the joy she’d feel that she almost feels it now, herself.

She would climb back in bed with him, her husband, and snuggle up to him.

‘You okay?’ he’d ask sleepily, his eyes closed.

She would lift her head and absorb him, the way he looked this moment before she told him. His strong nose, his face, relaxed and restful in his half-doze the way it almost never was when he was fully awake, the stubble on his cheeks--him, the man she loves. And then she’d whisper, ‘I’m pregnant.’

She opens her eyes. She doesn’t know what would happen next. Would a grin cross his face and would his eyes open and would he pull her into his arms and kiss her? Or would he say, ‘That’s nice, Lizzie,’ and roll over and go back to sleep? She’s afraid of the latter. _Whatever it takes to make you happy_ , he’d said tonight. _I need you._

 _Let’s skip ahead_ , she tells herself, and closes her eyes again. All right. In ten years, if she’s going by the timeline she established, they’d have a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old. A boy first, perhaps, and maybe they’d name him Nicholas after her father. Nicky. And the seven-year-old… Katharine, after Mike’s sister. Kitty, because Katy is already taken, of course, and she doesn’t like Kathy as a nickname.

All right. They have two children. They live in a brownstone in the Village or perhaps in Gramercy Park. Nicky is going to St. Bernard’s or Buckley or Dalton. Kitty is at Chapin, of course--the fourth generation of her family to attend. She imagines a typical school weekday.

It would be busy, of course--even now their mornings were and they don’t have children yet. But she would resign from the city and freelance, and teach at Barnard perhaps, and see a few private patients. Teaching would be good. It would mean that she could spend the bulk of the summers with her children.

But back to this typical school morning. She’d wake the children and make sure they’d dress in their uniforms and then go downstairs and make breakfast. She’d help Nicky and Kitty check that they have their homework and all the things they need for the day. What would they do after school? Perhaps they’d take tennis lessons at the courts in Central Park, or play soccer or baseball, so she’d need to ensure that they had all their things for that, too. Then what? Her children would eat breakfast and she’d have a cup of coffee and something too, then get ready to go herself. She’d be teaching, so she’d need to prepare to go uptown as well.

And Mike? He rarely ate breakfast, but maybe he’d join them for a cup of coffee or a bagel. Would he help her organize the children, would he drop them off at school--no, he’d be going the other way--would he pick them up from their activities? No, he’d be working. So he’d have some coffee and he’d leave, saying goodbye, and then it would be up to her.

Then what? After school she’d meet them at their activities and pick them up and bring them home. Would they drive or take the subway or the bus? Probably the latter. And who would pick them up from school and drop them off at their activities? Maybe they’d still have a nanny. Anyway. She’d pick her children up from their after-school activities and they’d go home. While they did their homework she would make dinner and, hopefully, they’d eat together, the four of them, as a family. She can picture Mike coming back, exhausted from a long day of work, kissing her and hugging their children. He’d get a beer from the fridge and sit down at the table between Nicky and Kitty and chat with them, hear about their days, and then they’d have dinner together as a family and then it would be Mike’s turn to be “on duty” while she graded papers or prepared for class. And then bedtime, tucking their children in after stories--for Kitty only, Nicky would be “too big, Mom, come on” and then kisses--Nicky would protest but secretly enjoy it--and then bed. And then it would be their time together. That’s the best case scenario.

And the worst? He would never be there--he would, quite simply, be an absent space in their family. He’d grab a beer after work with his colleagues instead of coming home to have dinner with them. He’d leave earlier than he needed to so that he wouldn’t need to help with the school routine. On his days off, he’d spend them playing pickup basketball games or playing baseball on the police league instead of being with their children. And when he did come home, finally, it would only be to climb into bed with her and that would be it.

He’s apologized, at least. But he still hasn’t said that he loves her. And would he ever tell their children that he loves them? If the answer is no, how badly that would hurt them, and if he wasn’t there, then how would they know, even if he could say the words…? And what about her? Would she know?

She isn’t any closer to an answer now than she was earlier this evening. She sighs and leans forward to drain the bath, climbing out and wrapping herself in a large, fluffy towel. Perhaps a good night’s sleep will give her some clarity.


	49. Don't let it end

He spends the whole week freaking out waiting for her to call him. He did it, finally--he told her how he felt, how he’d do anything for her, to have her in his life--anything she wanted. And he’s spent the past week imagining what that would mean.

Even though they’d talked once about kids and he’s certainly thought about kids and marriage in relation to her before, this past week feels like the first time he’s really thinking it through. He’s gone through, step by step, what it would be like. He imagines a wedding for them--small, with a judge presiding, downtown at City Hall. Just the two of them, preferably, though he figures they’re gonna have to invite her parents. He just wants it to be quiet, not a big thing like the weddings they’ve been to together.

Okay, so--wedding. That’s figured out. Where are they gonna live? If they’re gonna do this, he wants to start from scratch. He doesn’t want to be living in the place where she’s spent all her life, even if it’s the place where they spent four years together. So: if they want kids, a brownstone would be better. She could afford it; he could afford to split the mortgage payments, and if they buy a place that needs work then he can put in sweat equity and really make it theirs. The Village, maybe, or Gramercy--that would actually be better, a good compromise between his background and hers. Plus it would be close to Katy and her family.

He can put a checkmark next to “living situation” on his mental list. Okay. Next. Kids.

This is what gives him pause. She wants kids, he’s always known that, she’s so great with children and there’s not a single shadow of a doubt in his mind that she’d be the best mother in the world. It’s him that he’s worried about. What if he hurts them? What if he can’t give them enough of his time or his energy or he can’t love them enough? What if he resents them because they take time away from his relationship with Liz? And the way she’d want to raise them… the problem is, he wouldn’t be able to argue with her. He wouldn’t _want_ to argue with her. If they have kids he’d want them to have every advantage in life, every opportunity, and they _could_ because she has money and she can give that to them. He just resents the fact that he won’t be able to give them that, that it will be all from her.

But he has to set his pride aside. He doesn’t want to become bitter or resentful just because she’s lucky. He wants their kids to be lucky too, and they will be. They will never have to worry about their mother abusing them. They will never have to worry about money. They will always know that they are loved. They will be able to do whatever it is they want to do and know that they are loved and supported and he can do that too, he can love and support them and tell them, yes, you are a wonderful person and you are very, very loved.

He can do it. He can do it with her help. She’s an amazing woman and as long as she’s on his side…

He needs her to call him.

When he gets home, his answering machine is flashing and his heart stops for a moment. Is it her? He forces himself to take his time, to shed his suit jacket and shoes and lock the door behind him; only then does he press play.

‘Mike, it’s Liz,’ comes her familiar, very loved voice. ‘I’m ready to talk. Please give me a call and let me know when you might be available. Thanks.’

Okay, so it’s not the declaration of love and devotion that he’d wanted, but he knows her--she’d never do that on the answering machine. He picks up the phone and calls her back.

An hour later he’s waiting for her at Ryan’s Daughter. They’d gone here quite a bit in the early days of their relationship, before he essentially moved in with her--it’s almost exactly halfway between his apartment and hers. More memories, he thinks, as he finds two seats at the bar. He orders a Guinness for himself and a gin and tonic for her--she should be here any minute.

And then, all of the sudden, there she is. She looks so beautiful that for a moment he feels breathless. Her hair is pulled back at the nape of her neck and she’s wearing a simple blue linen shift with flat sandals and no makeup but Christ, she’s stunning, she’s gorgeous, she turns heads in this city filled with beautiful women.

She looks shy. She looks scared, actually, he thinks as she walks closer. Terrified. She steps closer and closer, finally stopping right in front of him. He wants to reach out and touch her, pull her into his arms, never let her go. Then he thinks, _why don’t you? You have nothing to lose_. So he stands up. She looks startled for an instant but then he pulls her into an embrace, holding her tightly, feeling her body against his. He loves her; he loves her more than anything and anyone and he knows her too, knows her mind and her heart and her body. He strokes her back, one hand settling at the base of her spine, and he feels her body tense. She pulls back abruptly and he looks down at her, confused.

‘Mike,’ she says, her voice tight. Her face is flushed red and she looks positively miserable. His heart sinks.

‘Sorry,’ he mumbles. ‘Uh, got you a drink.’

‘Thank you,’ she says. She sits down and he does too, careful not to encroach on her space. She stares down at her cocktail and doesn’t look at him.

He doesn’t know what to say. ‘You had a good week?’ he asks at last, having taken a swig of his beer.

She shrugs slightly, still avoiding looking at him.

He falls silent and takes another swig of beer. She drinks her gin and tonic too, obviously fortifying herself.

‘I can’t do it, Mike,’ she says, her voice so soft he can barely hear her over the din of the bar. ‘I just--I just don’t believe that you really want what you say you do. And you haven’t said what I need you to say. You haven’t convinced me that resuming our relationship would…’ she trails off.

‘What do you need me to say?’ he asks her, his voice equally quiet.

She turns her head to look at him. ‘That’s the problem. You should know.’ Her eyes are filled with pain and he has to look away. He can’t.

‘Just tell me, Lizzie,’ he begs her. ‘Please. I need you.’

She closes her eyes and turns her head away from him. ‘I wish things had been different. I don’t think you’ll ever know how much I wished that.’

‘They can be different, Lizzie,’ he assures her. ‘Listen, we can get married this fall. Just us, and your parents if you want, down at City Hall--we could get married tomorrow. Okay? And then we can buy a place that needs some work, and fix it up, and really make it our own place. I think Gramercy would be best. And kids. You want kids, we could start trying to have a baby as soon as we get married--’

‘Stop,’ she says. ‘You’re just saying these things to try to get me back, but I’m sorry, it’s not going to work.’ She opens her eyes and looks at him, then stands up. ‘Goodbye, Mike.’

‘I mean it,’ he tells her, grabbing her wrist to keep her from leaving. ‘I mean it, Lizzie, I want these things, I need to be with you--’

She frees herself gently. ‘Goodbye.’

He watches her walk away.

‘Tough luck,’ the bartender says sympathetically, pulling him away from watching the door, hoping she’ll come back. ‘Whiskey or vodka? It’s on the house.’

He turns and faces the bartender. ‘Whiskey,’ he says, resigned. ‘Thanks.’

The bartender nods and pours him a shot. ‘Bottom’s up.’


	50. Life must go on/I forget just why

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter--hard to believe I wrote fifty chapters of this fic when I really only intended it to be two chapters long! Thank you to my readers and reviewers--you all are amazing.
> 
> I am not into palmistry so please forgive any errors.
> 
> The title of this chapter comes from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

It was her birthday yesterday. It feels strange to not be celebrating it with her. If they were still together, he would’ve gone with her to the birthday party her parents planned year after year, despite her protestations that she was embarrassed being the center of attention. She was, he knows, but she was also touched to see how many of her friends and family gathered to celebrate her. Is there a party this year? If so, is Archie at her side instead?

He actually went out and bought copies of _Quest_ and _Town & Country_ to look at photos from her cousin’s wedding. She was featured in a lot of them, almost all of them with Archie, and he’s unsure if the sudden abundance of photographs is because she’s with someone the society pages are interested in, or because he’s not there dragging her down. It doesn’t matter.

He’s been thinking about her a lot. He can’t help it. He won’t let himself delve into the photographs and stuff he has of her, let alone the letters she’d written him, but he thinks about her, the way she was, how she made him a better person. And he thinks, constantly, about what she said. What did he need to tell her? He thought he’d told her everything she ever wanted to hear. He said he’d marry her as soon as she wanted. He said they could start trying to have a baby as soon as they were married. He said he needed her. What else did she need from him?

He doesn’t really know what to do next. It’s over with her, that’s for sure, and he’s going to keep his distance now. What she’d said to him… _I don’t think you’ll ever know how much I wished for things to be different_. She’d wanted what he was offering her and wanted it badly but he’d let her down again and whatever he was offering wasn’t enough. She thought he didn’t mean it.

He should have brought her the ring. He should have slid it onto her finger and she would have known, then, that he was serious. That he meant it. That he always meant it. But he didn’t, and he didn’t even tell her that he’d bought a ring, that he’d asked her parents for their blessing, that he wanted to marry her long before all of this came out. She must have thought--she did think--that he was simply grasping at straws, trying everything to keep her in his life. And he was, wasn’t he? Even if his intentions were good, that’s what it came down to.

He wishes she’d just tell him what she needed him to say. Then maybe he could finally set this down and move on.

He’s stopped dreaming about her and that just makes everything worse. He should still be allowed to have her in his dreams, if he can’t have her in the rest of his life. But he’s lost that too.

He’ll start dating soon but he’s not gonna get serious again. Why would he? She’s the person he wanted and needed and she’s gone. He’s not gonna try to recreate it. That’s fine. His life before her was pleasant enough and even if life with her was better, he’s not gonna _have_ a life with her any more. That’s the point. So. At least he’s not gonna have to rely on someone else. He’ll just stick it out on his own, and when he needs someone else, well, he’s a good-looking cop in Manhattan. There’s always gonna be someone willing.

***

She feels absolutely, utterly ridiculous sitting here in this tiny room, waiting for the fortune teller. A fortune teller! She’s not one who believes that the mysteries of her life and future can be told from her palm; from her mind, perhaps, but not through the typical ways of divination. But here she is, the day after her thirty-fourth birthday, waiting.

The room is just what she’d expected when Nicky told her that he was taking her to see a fortune teller as her birthday present. She’d protested, but he wore her down, and he’s waiting outside now.

‘She’s real, Lilibet,’ he told her. ‘When I saw her after Tom, she told me things she never could have known otherwise.’

She doesn’t know that she believes it, even though she does believe that Nina, her parents’... well, everything, not just housekeeper… has a gift, can see some things that will happen. Maybe she should just suspend her disbelief. After all, some people think that psychology is witchcraft, too.

When the curtain is pulled aside and the fortune teller comes in, she’s surprised. She looks nothing like she expected. This woman is older, thin, and she looks… haunted. Is that the right word?

‘I’m Brigid O’Grady,’ she says, and sits down at the small table across from her. Her accent is strong and almost familiar; perhaps she is from the same part of Ireland as Mike’s family. She forces that thought away. ‘May I see your hands, please?’

She places her hands on the table and the fortune teller studies them, picking up first her left hand, then her right. Mrs. O’Grady lingers over her right hand, tracing the lines in it, clucking softly, once, sighing once, too. She feels self-conscious with this stranger’s focused attention on her, but then Mrs. O’Grady sighs again and sets down her hand.

‘I must congratulate you,’ Mrs. O’Grady says. ‘You are a very fortunate woman. It’s clear that you’ve suffered, but you have your health and your family and a comfortable life.’

She doesn’t know what to say.

‘You have lost love,’ Mrs. O’Grady tells her. ‘Twice. Once when you were young, once very recently. One will come back to you.’ Her heart clenches tight at that. Who will come back to her? Honestly, she can’t imagine it will be Mike. Lucas seems far more likely. Well, she had loved him too, very much. ‘You will have one child.’

 _I’ll have a child!_ she thinks with joy, though a moment later she thinks, _only one. Oh._ But still, right now this knowledge a blessing she thought she would never have. Then she thinks, _knowledge? How do I know this is real? How could it be real?_

‘You don’t believe me,’ Mrs. O’Grady says, and the haunted look has vanished somewhat in her amusement. ‘Well, it is true. Palmistry isn’t the wooly medium looking into a crystal ball is. Your hands show what you’ve been given,’ she taps her left palm, ‘and what you make of it.’ She taps her right palm. ‘You’ve been given many blessings. You’ve worked hard to make the most of them, too, which is rare. You have many things that you want, though right now you feel lost, do you not?’

She nods, reluctantly.

‘Well, you will have everything you want one day,’ Mrs. O’Grady says. ‘One day.’

‘When?’ she asks.

The fortune teller stands and smiles at her. ‘Ah, well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Be well.’

Before she can protest, or ask any more questions, she is gone.

She thinks about what was said later. She is a lucky person; she’s always known that, she still feels that way. She is grateful for everything she has and everything she’s had. She had love twice in her life; that was lucky. Even if it ended badly… well, she’s been trying to think of the past four years in a positive light, even though finding out what he did in 1992 has poisoned some of the time they spent together. But no, she reminds herself. She didn’t know it at the time/ She can remember the life that she lived and think about him with fondness. And she can move on. She can be happy on her own.

She can’t help but think, though, _if he’d only said that he loved me_. How could he not realize that was what she needed him to say? It still baffles her. The last time he’d told her that he loved her was at Christmas last year. They were tucked up in bed on Christmas Eve at her parents’ house and she was tired after the dinner and playing with her cousins’ children. And before she fell asleep, he kissed her and looked into her eyes and said, ‘Lizzie, I love you so much. I’m so lucky.’

Even if he rarely said it, she’d believed that he loved her. Every time he touched her, or kissed her, she knew it. The way he looked at her, too, like she was this rare and priceless treasure he’d discovered…

When he told her he’d give her anything she wanted--marriage, a home, children--she was tempted. God, she was so tempted. She wanted that more than anything in the entire world but she didn’t want these things without him wanting them, too. That was the problem. He made it clear that the things he was offering were not things that he wanted, even though she did. He made it clear that they were concessions he’d give her to have her back in her life, in his bed, and she didn’t want that, she couldn’t have that.

Archie is gone. She ended things with him--it wasn’t fair to him, or to her, because she didn’t love him. Besides, he is tied up in Ireland still. His grandfather passed away shortly after they ended their relationship and he is still there, sorting through his grandfather’s house and estate. He won’t return for a few months, and perhaps never.

It’s all right. She’s realizing that she has more to work through than she anticipated. And Archie… he was a good man, a kind man, but not the man for her. That’s all right too. She knows what it’s like to be in love with someone and she’s not in love with him.

She’s a psychologist. She’s spent years studying the human mind and what makes people tick and she can’t explain why she still feels something for him. He hurt her. What she feels now is unhealthy. It doesn’t matter what she tells herself, she can’t stop thinking about what could have been. What should have been.

If she had gone to see Mrs. O’Grady before she met Mike and she had told her how things would end, would she have slept with him, let alone started a relationship with him? Right now, she’s not sure. She had some of the happiest moments of her life with him but some of the most heart-wrenching were thanks to him, too.

It’s strange to think about the future, about _moving on_. She knows he’ll go back to the life he had before her, where he hangs out at bars and chases skirts and doesn’t see the same woman more than three times. ‘After three times, they start thinkin’ about marriage,’ she heard him say once, long before they became entangled. Well, that had been true with her, she admits to herself. That had been very true.

She doesn’t think she’ll date again--well, she will eventually, but not for a while. She is not going to date just to date; she’ll wait until she finds someone who moves her. It will be all right.

She is not going to spend the rest of her life mourning what she’s lost. She’s had more than many, many people get in their lifetimes. She’ll be all right. It will just take a little time.


End file.
